Changes From Beyond the Looking Glass
by Shadow Master
Summary: (BtVS/Mass Effect Universe/Stargate SG-1)You get to experience a lot when you're a member of a top secret organization. Things that are amazing beyond words and things that scare you to the soul. Get ready for the bar to be raised.
1. Chapter 1

"Changes from Beyond the Looking Glass" by Shadow Master aka Ryley Breen

email: ryley[underscore]breen

(BtVS/Mass Effect Universe/Stargate SG-1)

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted material contained herein. That means I don't own the 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' television show, the 'Mass Effect universe' or the television show 'Stargate SG-1'. They belong to their respective creators and associated companies. I write fanfics only because there are those who enjoy reading my work and because it's fun to write fanfics. I am making no profit off of this whatsoever. Therefore I would appreciate it if the owners didn't send their lawyers after me with lawsuits. I can assure them that whatever they got from me won't cover even a tenth of the fees their lawyers dropped in their laps.

Note: Timeline specifications are as follows: In the BtVS side of things it's May 2008 and that puts it about five years after the events in the series finale. However I am steering clear of BtVS season 8 as far as the plot goes. Some characters and some facts might be used but other than that you can turn a blind eye to the events of Season 8 BtVS. As far as the Mass Effect Universe the Normandy will be the SR-2 at the very end of ME2 upgrades and all. As far as the crew they'd be the same. Anything else…I'll wait to surprise you. As far as Stargate SG-1 it'll be during Season 5 of the series.

Note 2: In this fic I'll be playing with some of the dates in the shows and the chronology of some events. Mostly I'm doing this because I don't want to break my back trying to make everything mesh and fit together just right. There are also some elements that I want that aren't available when I want them so I'll be tweaking things to suit my needs. If anyone reading this has a problem with that then I suggest you find another fic. I'll take suggestions and if they're good enough I'll use them but this is MY fanfic and I get final say on everything.

Note 3: I am NOT going to use any aspect of the so-called 'Indoctrination Theory' being supported by various fans of the trilogy. The reason for this is because I don't see the people behind the game making their hidden message that hard to pick up on. Plus I think that a lot of the points and 'proof' put forth is a lot of overanalyzing and picking apart the various insignificant loose ends that Bioware and EA thought too small to bother fixing. No videogame company is thorough to the point of ridiculousness with every aspect of their game so it's to be expected that there'd be a glitch or loose end here and there. Therefore I believe that the whole 'Indoctrination Theory' is nothing less than supporters overanalyzing the final game using inconsistencies, glitches and developer efficiency to prove their theory. It's just my opinion but I just thought I'd put this out there.

_Changes from Beyond the Looking Glass_

_**Scotland, Slayer Organization Castle, Early Evening**_

_**May 20**__**th**__**, 2009**_

_**Xander's POV**_

"Long time no see, Buff'!" he exclaimed as he hugged his longtime friend in the courtyard of the castle. "It's been what? Three years?"

"Two and a half. Close enough," Buffy said as she returning the hug. "How've you been?"

"Well, hiking your way through Africa most of the time and enjoying the occasional jeep as a luxury does wonders for getting you fit," he said as they separated and he looked down at his extremely fit body. "Still, it's nice to get back to civilization where I actually have a decent chance of getting a box of Twinkies."

"No worries on that front. When we got your RSVP for the party, I made sure the kitchen staff stocked up on Twinkies." She began to walk towards the main castle entrance, "Should be enough in the cupboards to keep you happy until you head back to Africa. I'm assuming you're heading back there after the anniversary party?"

"Yeah. We might've found just about every potential there but that doesn't mean I can leave them alone. Things might've improved politically over there but there are still wannabe warlords, little wars and places where words like 'justice' don't exist. I need another few years before some of the Slayers down there have enough experience to their names to handle things down there without me."

He was understating how things were down there but he didn't want Buffy or the others to needlessly worry about him. Things were rough and in order to even things up, he'd begun training the Slayers he found in firearms and explosives before giving them their own personal stash of the stuff. He didn't just teach them how to use the tools of a soldier, though; he also tried to teach them the proper morals of a solider, with a few of his own rules thrown in when appropriate. Some accepted his instructions with approval while others had their own codes that, while a bit extreme, weren't bad enough that he had to stop them.

Those that wouldn't accept his lessons and thought that they could do whatever they want with what they had and what he gave them… were dealt with.

Often permanently.

He shuddered a bit at the memory of one group of Slayers that had to be put down quick a little over three years ago and that memory was all the incentive he needed to go the extra mile with Slayers. Simone and her bunch were clear cut examples of the bad side of Willow's activation spell and, while they weren't numerous enough to justify worldwide correction, they were still problems. Giles had been the one to give the order to have the group removed and, by the time that the rest of the Organization found out what had been done, there wasn't much left to do but yell at each other. It wasn't pleasant, some believing that they should've tried harder to reach out to the 'troubled Slayers', while others had agreed with the order because they thought it'd have only made things worse for the rest of them if they wasted time trying to negotiate with the rogues. Surprisingly enough Buffy had been one of the ones against trying to reach out to Simone and her group of troublemakers. According to her they couldn't put the entire Organization at risk for so few people who'd already betrayed everything a Slayer was supposed to stand for.

Didn't mean that she didn't get drunk afterwards and vote for the motion to increase mental health measures for all branches in order to make sure there were no repeats in the future.

As they entered the castle proper, he laid eyes on one of the people who'd been outraged at the news that Simone and her allies had been taken out.

No wonder since, before the group went rogue, they were a part of the Rome branch of the Organization and Andrew was a ranking member of that branch. Wells had been madder than anyone had seen him in a long time and had gone as far as to compare them to the old Council and how they disposed of Slayers that caused them too much trouble. This, of course, had set Buffy and Giles off, causing things to get ugly before all parties stomped out of the room, avoiding each other for months before showing that they could still work together.

Looking at Andrew talking with a brunette Slayer, though, he could tell that the incident had changed the blonde but he'd be damned if he couldn't tell if it was for the better or not. Reports could only tell you so much but what he'd read showed a decisive increase in efficiency at the Rome branch, as well as signs of a drop in complaints from the locals about how the Slayers stationed there operated. A few of his own Slayers had taken a few trips there on official business and none of them reported anything off but one did report feeling peripheral… animosity in the Roman Slayers. It hadn't been anything obvious or even lightly covert but the Slayer was one of his more perceptive ones so he trusted her assessment.

As his eyes met Andrew's, he could tell his Slayer was right on the money.

Wells still harbored some animosity towards him but not enough from what he could see to make it impossible to work together.

"It'll be alright, Xander," Buffy said, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. "He isn't going to be inviting you over for a sci-fi movie marathon after the party but as long as you don't bring up Simone, he's nice enough."

"I know. It's not like I don't understand where he was coming from back then but he wasn't looking at the big picture. If we'd let those Slayers run loose for too long, every government we had agreements with would've raised political hell. Might've made them put their crosshairs on us just in case."

"Hey, hey, don't need to convince me. I supported what you did," she said as they headed up the stairs, to Giles' office most likely. "Some people… some people have long memories."

"Yeah," was all he said in reply as he began to take in the castle itself to see if they'd made any changes since he was last here.

He remembered the first time he'd been there with the others and saw the ruins of the old Scottish castle. Andrew had immediately began drawing comparisons between it and Castle Wyvern from the old 'Gargoyles' cartoon but a few words from Faith quieted him up. He hadn't told the others but he'd been something of a fan of the show himself and could see what Wells was getting at. The location was similar, on a cliff jutting out into the sea, and, aside from some minor layout differences that he could see, could very well have been Disney's inspiration. The tactical part of his mind had liked it because it made it impossible for them to be surrounded by land forces and precious few enemies of theirs had a navy to complement their infantry. The walls were tall and thick, what few had still been standing at the time, making infantry weaponry useless against it and all but requiring something with a bit more BOOM to it. It'd taken quite a bit of time repairing everything and then add on all the little extras like an international army's HQ needed in order to be secure against both man and demon but they got it done.

"Any new features since the last time I was here?" he asked as they set foot on the second floor of the main building.

"Giles has people doing work at the base of the cliff. Says he wants to reinforce it all so we don't wind up getting dropped in the ocean. Willow thinks we should build some docks down there with an elevator that'll go up to the castle. Figures there'll be a few sea demons we'll have to deal with so building a place to put our boats is a must."

"Makes sense," he said, thinking about what the swim team had turned into back in high school. "What did Giles say?"

"He said he'd prioritize the reinforcement of the cliff first and then add on the docks later. We might not have the money problems we used to but we still have to prioritize the necessities over new stuff."

"Necessities like shoes? Clothes?" he asked with humor in his voice as he ribbed her a bit.

"Yep!" she replied with half seriousness and half humor. "After all I gotta look like I belong in whatever country I'm in and, if I gotta fit in, I might as well look good at the same time."

"Oh yeah! That's a must." His best Harmony impersonation was scarily accurate.

They both chuckled as he pushed open the door to reveal G-man's office and the man himself was sitting behind his desk talking to someone on the phone. The man's years were wearing on him and, while it didn't look like the Brit would be retiring any soon, it was a good thing he no longer did any field work for the Organization. He didn't doubt the man's mind or spirit but Giles' body was getting up there in years, making it increasingly dangerous just to just be out in the field, never mind fighting demons. Better for him to work behind the scenes handling administrative stuff and entertaining the few politicians that showed up. He was pretty sure that G-man agreed but some of the phone calls they'd had over the years made it clear that he'd go back to the field in an instant to get away from the bureaucrats.

"Yes… yes… I'm sure that Amara didn't intend to destroy that building…" Giles said to whomever was on the other end of the phone. "…yes… I'll make sure to send a message to all branch heads to have their Slayers be more careful with their activities. Goodbye, Prime Minister."

"Trouble with a head of state?" he asked with his mind putting together various scenarios based on what he'd heard.

"Xander, good to see you! Ah, yes, one of the Slayers in British Columbia was a bit careless when dispatching a pack of R'ozeg hounds. One of them apparently ignited a nearby gas main, destroying a four story building in the process." Giles put the phone down, "Needless to say the Prime Minister would prefer it if we kept our activities a tad more low profile."

"I can imagine. Not every town has the benefit of Sunnydale Syndrome and drawing too much attention to a covert war is never a good idea. So how are things here otherwise? Any change with that mess in Japan?"

"As well as could be expected given that we're still experiencing the after effects of awakening every potential Slayer on the planet," Giles replied as he got out of his chair, wincing slightly at the end. "As for the incident in Japan, I can happily say that it has finally been resolved. A team there finally got a break involving the clan of succubi that were causing trouble in Kyoto."

"Dead or run out of town?" he asked curious about the resolution of the problem.

"A few dead but, when it became clear that they would not prevail against the team, they fled. I've put an alert out to all neighboring branches to keep a sharp eye out for them. With luck they will return to their original hunting grounds in the wild and leave major population centers alone."

"You're not wiping them out?" Buffy asked, sounding a bit surprised.

"No. Despite their dietary requirements, succubi are not inherently evil. They do what they do out of necessity more than malicious desire," Giles replied as he removed his glasses from his pocket to clean them. "Besides which, this clan has strong ties to the largest succubi clan in the world. They have a militant faction that is often scouted by the Order of Teraka. I would prefer not to give them a reason to declare war on the Slayer Organization."

"Yep. Not a good idea to piss off warrior sex demons," he said, not liking the idea of fending off warrior succubi.

"You're just afraid they'll all go after you first." Buffy said with a smile of amusement.

"Hey! I'll have you know it's been a full year since the last femme fatale came onto me and SHE was HUMAN!" he exclaimed with mock indignation as a twitch of a smile showed up on his face.

"Well, at least that's something," Buffy said before the two of them broke down into laughter.

Giles, of course, merely coughed to cover up his own chuckles while placing his glasses back into his pocket. Even years after switching to contact lenses the man still kept his old glasses on hand and still cleaned them whenever he became flustered emotionally. Anyone who knew him knew that the Brit used the cleaning of them as a method of dealing with difficult situations but, with all the Organization had been through, the guy must've gone through at least fifty lenses in the last year alone.

After their good laugh they all sat down and discussed what each of them had been doing since they'd last seen each other in person. It was only a little over two hours later that their conversation turned to the festivities that'd be taking place later that night.

"So what's the theme for tonight's party, G-Man?" he asked, recalling how each year had been different than the one before it. "I didn't get a chance to check my mail before I hopped on the plane."

"It will be a costume party, apparently. When the time came to choose who would be organizing the matter, Posey from research volunteered to handle it." Giles began searching his desk for something, "Apparently she's chosen to make it follow a specific theme though I am unfamiliar with that theme. Now where did I… yes, here it is. What do you make of it?"

Taking a sheet of paper from the head of the Slayer Organization, he took a look at it and found out that the theme for the anniversary party tonight was the XBOX game 'Mass Effect'. An odd choice since usually when you put something like this together, you usually chose a theme that everyone liked and could enjoy. That's not to say that every person attending would hate it or refuse to come once they found out or anything like that but, depending on the nature and design of the costumes, Posey might receive some blowback in the weeks following. Nothing too severe, some pranks as well as some cold shoulders, but blowback just the same.

"It's a sci-fi game for the XBOX. Fairly popular," he replied, handing the paper back. "Played it a bit with some of the Slayers during down time."

"Please tell me it isn't jogging suits and space bimbos!" Buffy exclaimed, clearly fearing the game would be too much like Star Trek.

"Nope… well, not for the main characters anyways. Some of the extras and NPCs are pole dancers in skin tight latex but, depending on what outfit you get, I don't think you'll have to worry about it. Basically the more background work a character had, the more respectable their outfit was and the important what they did was."

"Then here's hoping I get at least a co-star costume or else someone's gonna pay," Buffy said, sounding serious enough that he really hoped that Posey took consequences into account with her costume list.

"Well, I think I'm going to go unpack and unwind. See you guys later at the party."

Leaving, he wondered what costume Posey had decided to assign to him. He wouldn't mind if he just got one of the less important characters but he'd prefer one that wouldn't require him to put on make-up or face paint. He was a little old to be playing dress up like it was Halloween and past experiences with Halloweens didn't leave him looking forward to the holiday as much as he did pre-Buffy.

_At least it's spring instead of fall, _he thought as he walked down the hallway to the room he slept in any time he was in the castle. _With a little luck it'll be enough to keep the demony and witchy from having fun at our expense._

_**Meeting Room Three, Posey's POV**_

Nobody understood Andrew Wells.

Not like she did.

When others looked at him they saw the nerd, the man who couldn't fight worth a damn, someone who could only be useful in the R&amp;D department or some other place far from the battlefield. They made jokes about him with some not caring if he heard them while others did so only when he wasn't in the room with him so they could be confronted. Everyone looked up to the others like Buffy, Faith and even Xander but they barely remembered that Andrew had lived in the Sunnydale just as long as Harris and Rosenberg had. Sure he hadn't done anything as memorable as the original Scooby gang but he'd told her that he'd always known that something odd was going on in his town unlike the rest of the populace. While he hadn't come right out and told her, she was sure that he'd helped where and when he could behind the scenes without Buffy or her friends knowing about it. While most people loved the sort of heroes that walked onto the battlefield, gun in hand, kicking ass and taking names while marching ever closer to victory, she was different. She preferred those who operated off the battlefield and made victory possible for the big time heroes. Too few realized that you can be the most badass warrior around but if your equipment is shoddy or your enemy intel is worth less than shit, then you'll almost certainly die.

That was why she admired Andrew because, when it came to research and making sense of enemy intel, he was never wrong. Numerous missions would not have succeeded if he hadn't been the one in charge and she knew it. She had numerous pieces of evidence to support this in the form of other teams in similar situations where things had been organized by other people to support her position. He might not be a hero of the body but, in her mind, he was a hero of the mind and he deserved to be recognized as such.

But he wasn't no matter how many successful missions could be attributed to him.

That would change though.

She'd make it change.

She even had a plan to enact that change that she got from one of the Old Council's mission reports. According to the report there was an incident in Sunnydale during Buffy's second year there on Halloween where a chaos mage came to town and cast a spell. The spell turned all those who'd purchased a costume or a piece of a costume from a specific store to become what they'd be dressed up as for the night. Not only did they take on the mind of the costume but also the physical characteristics, whether it was complete intangibility or a toy gun becoming a real one. The spell was ended when Watcher Rupert Giles shattered the bust that was the focal point of the entire spell but that did not undercut the benefits of the spell.

All it would need would be a little tweaking and she would be able to make Andrew a hero both in mind and body.

It'd taken forever to figure out a way to trick someone skilled enough in the mage division to figure out a way to make the changes permanent while leaving the original owner in control. She'd proposed a hypothetical scenario where a group of evil mages tried to use the spell to give themselves fictional powers and keep them after the spell ended. She'd asked the mage to tell her what to look out for in terms of symbols, artifacts and incantations. Fortunately she hadn't needed to figure out a way to make the mage go into detail with what he'd figured out since he was one of the types that loved to talk and was positively anal about the details. She'd known this beforehand and had made sure to covertly take pictures of everything while using a tape recorder to catch everything he'd said to her. Every single day since then she'd gone over the details until she could repeat them in her sleep so she knew that she wouldn't slip up on that side of things.

The problem had been to find the right time of the year to do it since Halloween was not an option. Even years after the night in question, the senior members of the organization were wary around that night and would've picked up on what she'd planned in an instant. Fortunately Janus was the god of beginnings and endings, so choosing to perform the spell during the time of transition between spring and summer would work for her.

Not as well as All Hollows Eve but she'd take what she could get.

The next part was to figure out a way to hide the truth in plain sight but thankfully the yearly anniversary party for the destruction of Sunnydale was just perfect for her. Each year the theme of the party was different so all she'd had to do was make sure that she was chosen to run the party and then to make the theme a costume party. She'd spent some time examining several possible works of fiction to find just the right one that'd allow Andrew's mind to be supplemented by a strong body. She couldn't turn him into Superman or someone else just as powerful since that would require a more powerful caster. Right now she was counting on her slice of the Slayer essence to power the spell and she'd be lucky if she didn't pass out before everything was all said and done. Therefore she'd stuck to the more human fictional characters but make sure they were the best at what they did and had abilities that would make Andrew stand out amongst the other senior members of the Organization.

That's when she'd come upon the game 'Mass Effect' and realized she'd found the source material she needed in order to achieve her objective. The hero of the game was human but he was in absolute peak human condition while also possessing a power referred to as biotics in the game. From what she could tell biotics were like the mental powers of telekinesis, pyrokinesis and cryokinesis. Since those abilities already existed in this dimension, it wouldn't require a lot of power to give them to Andrew and, when added to the elite military tactics and know how he'd acquire, it'd be perfect. In no time at all he'd be one of the most respected members of the Organization.

With the theme of the party chosen she'd gone about gathering the decorations as well as the food but it'd taken more work to get the costumes. While only Andrew's would be enchanted, she needed enough to cover everyone in attendance and they needed to be of the same quality so that the target of the spell wouldn't be singled out. She'd looked everywhere she could for a quality costume provider who'd proven in the past that they could produce normal outfits and armor with equal skill. It'd taken up until three months ago to find the one that met her standards but after that it'd been simply a matter of placing an order and specifying what she wanted.

From there she'd begun the process of choosing who'd get what costume so she could send their measurements to the costume manufacturers so that they'd fit perfectly. THAT had taken some doing, especially if she wanted to avoid making things too embarrassing for both her and the person she talked to. Eventually she'd managed to get all the numbers she'd needed and had immediately placed an order so that everything would be ready by today. The costumes were due to arrive shortly and would be taken up to the people they'd been assigned to immediately thereafter so they'd have everything on in time for the party.

She chuckled a bit as she recalled the costume choices she assigned to the senior members of the organization. Some, like Giles' outfit, would be perfectly okay and be a sign of her respect or perhaps even admiration for the person while the others, like Xander's, would be a bit of revenge on her part.

She did transfer from the Rome branch to the Scotland branch two years ago, after all.

After the Organization heads had completely ignored Andrew's pleas to give him time to persuade Simone and her group to return to the fold by assassinating them behind the Rome branch's back, she'd decided to make sure it never happened again. She'd put in a request for a transfer a month later and, once she'd arrived in Scotland, she'd done all she could to put herself as close to the information center of the castle as possible. That way she could monitor the information and, if anything like what happened to Simone's group happened again to the Rome branch, she'd be able to give Andrew some advance warning or even delay the action a bit. Nothing had popped up so far but that didn't mean she couldn't have some fun at Harris' expense and, if it made the pirate the laughing stock of the party, then so much the better.

Andrew, of course, would get the Commander Shepard costume with a handful of weapons props that would expand just like the ones in the game. They were even made out of metal rather than plastic but there were no electronics inside to produce sound effects or flashing lights, though. The most the manufacturer had been able to do was to rig it so that the thermal clip could be inserted and would pop out if the user mimicked what the game characters did with that weapon to make it do the same. She'd considered asking the mage division to make up some bracelets that would project the image of the omni-tool but decided that that would be taking things too far.

It was only a party after all.

A knock at the door drew her attention. "Yes?" she asked without looking up from the last few bits of preparation paperwork she'd been doing.

"The costumes you ordered have arrived, Posey. Where do you want to put them?" came the voice of Leah through the door.

"They should have the names of the people they're supposed to go to on the boxes. Just grab a couple of new recruits and drop them off in front of the right doors." She said only briefly looked up from the door, "Leave the one for Andrew here with me, though. I want to make sure that they got it right since there was a bit of interference over the phone when we got to that part of the order."

"Okay," Leah said before all was silence once more.

That hadn't been a lie. She really had experienced some trouble placing the order and it had been due to a bad connection but it hadn't been due to anything audio but rather she'd had trouble faxing certain info to them. When the number of detailed characters had dried up, she'd been forced to dig a bit for the info she needed in order to fill in the gaps. That had been when she'd called in some favors she'd been owed by a pair of hacker pals she'd made in the Rome branches I.T. department and had them do some digging into both Bioware and EA. After the success 'Mass Effect' had experienced in the videogame scene, she knew it was only a matter of time before a sequel was put into production. Sometimes companies began work on the sequel before the first one had been publically released because they'd meant the game idea to be a two or three parter from the beginning. In any case, she'd asked her hacker pals to look for any new characters that'd be introduced in the sequel and to focus on the ones that already had pictures and a back story attached to them. It'd taken some time but they'd managed to do it without getting caught and sent her the necessary number of characters to use in her plans. Naturally she'd had to fax the concept pictures that had been taken directly from the Bioware and EA computers to the costume makers so that they had something to work with. It'd taken five tries with the fax machine but eventually the company got clear copies of both and since she'd heard nothing troublesome from them, she could only presume everything had worked out fine.

_Just like everything will work fine with Andrew once he gets his upgrade,_ she thought as she heard the sound of several boxes being put down outside the room she was in.

_**The Hallway Leading to the Banquet Hall, Willow's POV**_

_Good thing this is easier to see through than it looked. _She thought as she walked to the banquet hall, _Otherwise I'd be bumping into things all over the place._

It had been an odd sight when she'd opened the boxes that'd been delivered to her room and saw the costume that Posey had picked out for her. Normally she and the others would've picked what they wanted but Posey had been so enthusiastic about being in charge of the party that everyone had decided to let the younger Slayer have her way. It wasn't that the costume she'd gotten was ugly or anything because, after she'd taken everything out, she actually found the costume to be quite pretty. Black two toed boots, straps that were either black or gold and the rest being black leather or a purple cloth with white swirly patterns drawn on it. However the part she'd had some difficulty with had been the helmet and that'd been because of the curved purple glass that made up over half of it. It'd been such a deep purple she'd been worried that she'd have difficulty seeing out of it but, after she'd opened it up to put it on, she'd learned that only one side of the glass was purple. The other was perfectly clear and easy to see through, so walking around with it on wouldn't be a problem.

Another element of her costume that she'd been fascinated with had been the large pistol and shotgun that had come with her costume. Apparently they had two states: one where they were as compact as possible and another where they unfolded in order to be used. It reminded her of collapsible mini-crossbow from that show 'Relic Hunter' but for firearms. While obviously not working models they made her wonder about trying something similar with the tools that various Slayers used. It would certainly make transporting them easier and it would make it harder for the people in customs to positively ID them since you'd have to unfold the weapon to see its natural shape. She supposed the reason why it hadn't been done before all that well was because making a sword or an axe that folded up weakened them structurally. If she applied a fusing charm to the parts the bent or folded, made it so that they became as one once fully unfolded that, it could fix the issue.

"Hey Willow." Spoke a voice from ahead of her that she hadn't heard from in over a year.

Looking up, she saw her first boyfriend Oz standing not twenty feet from her wearing a costume of his own. It had been a little over a year since the Organization helped the werewolf found a school for others of his kind where they could learn the techniques he did to tame the wolf inside. It'd been difficult setting up the protective wards to keep werewolf hunters out, as well as any others that might threaten the purpose of the school or the residents. She still remembered how complex the rune configurations had been in order to meet all the necessary conditions and criteria but it'd been worth it according to the phone calls they had since then. No less than eight attempts at illegal entry had been made since but all of them had been stopped the moment the intruder or intruders had taken a single step onto the school's property.

"Oz! When did you get in?!" she asked as she ran to him and hugged him. "Your plane wasn't supposed to land until tomorrow!"

"Traded tickets with someone," Oz said, returning the hug for a bit before they parted. "Nice costume."

"You too," she said, looking at the costume he was wearing.

It looked to be a uniform of some sort but there didn't appear to be any real personalization to make her think that it was one of the main characters of the game the party was centered on. Black combat boots and knee pads started things out, followed by cargo pants that looked a little padded and a short sleeved shirt to top it all off. It was a mix of black, white and gray as far as color scheme went, with some sort of gold symbol on each shoulder that she couldn't identify. He also had a black and white baseball cap on his head with 'SR-2' on it but that struck her as odd since, according to her skim of the 'Mass Effect' website, it should say 'SR-1'.

As with most things in her life she researched the game as soon as she found out what the theme of the party would be so she'd have an idea of who her character was. Tali'Zorah nar Rayya of the Quarian Flotilla was her character and, unless she was very much mistaken (very unlikely in her opinion), Oz had dressed up as Jeff 'Joker' Moreau the pilot of the Normandy spaceship. She hadn't watched any of the clips from the game but apparently the character Oz was dressed up as was an ace pilot and believed himself to be the best pilot in the entire Earth Alliance fleet. Joker wasn't the star of the show but still had a respectable role in the story of the game.

"Everything okay back at the school?" she asked as they both began walking towards the banquet hall.

"Yep. Left Nina in charge." Oz replied without concern in his voice.

Nina was a woman who'd been changed into a werewolf on purpose by a group in L.A who apparently ate a variety of nonhuman species like most people would eat a Thanksgiving Day turkey. She'd wound up being rescued by Angel and his team at the last moment when the group succeeded in capturing her for their evening meal. The woman had spent some time with the fang gang, taking the same steps as Oz to make sure she didn't kill anyone when she changed. However when Oz founded his school she moved there and helped work with him to help others adjust to the change from a human to a werewolf. Next to Oz, Nina was the most senior person at the school so it was in good hands with her.

"Everything cool?" he asked her as the doors to the banquet hall came into view.

"Well, we've already dealt with the yearly apocalypse in six different spots around the world so we'll be riding the summer mellow for a while," she replied as they continued to walk side by side. "We still have the people in the intelligence division keeping their eyes open for anything suspicious but so far nothing's come up that needs more than what a local team has."

"Good," he said as he reached out for the door to the banquet hall and pushed it open.

"We've told every branch that they can take some time off to party if they want but only after they've done at least one patrol of the hotspots in their area," she explained as they entered the room, finding the party already in full swing.

"Smart."

Looking about to see if there were any costumes that caught her eye, she saw that most of them looked to be repeats, making her think that perhaps they were nameless background characters. Some were dressed like Oz, making her think that they might be crew members from the Normandy, while others were dressed up as aliens from the various 'Mass Effect' races. There was nothing distinctive about their costumes, making her believe it was more NPCs but as she looked to the left she spotted Buffy and the others to find that they'd lucked out with unique costumes. Without thinking on it for more than a second, she changed course towards where they were gathered and began to examine their costumes.

Buffy's was first and she had to wonder how the senior Slayer felt wearing it with so many people around to see it. Starting from the top was a dominantly red hood with bits of black in just the right places that covered most of her head, leaving only shaded eyes and everything below the mid-point of the dorsum being in plain sight. Going on down, it looked like she was wearing a black bodysuit with red and grey trim placed in stylish areas, as well as a belt with the same color scheme resting at an angle around her waist. The part that might have Buffy feeling a bit awkward was the thigh high red boots, with the outer sole being black in order to stay in keeping with the color scheme of the rest of the outfit.

"Looking pretty sharp, Buffy," she said, complimenting her friend in an effort to put the blonde at ease.

"I guess. I'm just glad that this hood makes it hard for people to see the purple eye shadow I had to put on," Buffy said, reluctantly giving her approval to the outfit. "And what's with this strip of purple on my lower lip?! I look like Queen Amidala!"

"I think it's something to do with Asian nobility make up or something."

Buffy just shrugged at the answer but then seemed to let the lingering feelings of uneasiness go so that she could enjoy the party rather than endure it.

"Well, at least you didn't have to put on this weird skull cap and all this blue body paint," Dawn said, sounding displeased at the difficulty of getting that part of her costume on.

The outfit that the youngest Summers wore looked like a ladies business suit made out of Kevlar and designed by a Japanese manga artists who specialized in sci-fi stories. Blue and white were the primary colors with bits of black as well as grey thrown in to add some variety, making her think it was all to compliment the aqua blue body paint on Dawn's face. There were some white pieces of armor in place but the Kevlar was definitely dominant making her think that parts were meant to highlight shape while the others were mean to draw attention to toned muscles. At least that was her opinion.

"Good thing I didn't have to go through any of that crap," Faith said before taking a sip of her drink. "Just needed to style my hair a bit and put on this wicked looking cat suit. A bit tighter than I'd like but it ain't like I'm all that modest."

She had to shake her head at that.

Even though a little over ten years had passed since the second oldest Slayer had come to Sunnydale with her tough and sexy attitude, she still acted like she was the ultimate sex symbol. Nevertheless, the outfit she was wearing definitely clung to her curved figure but was actually a little conservative when you considered how risqué some Halloween costumes could go. White pants and top with a hexagon pattern embedded into the fabric of both with the same symbol as what was on Oz's outfit on Faith's left breast. There were also knee high black boots and the sleeves of the outfit were black pieces that even covered the hands leaving only white fingers and thumbs at the end. There was a bit of exposed skin up top but from what she could see it was no bigger than a glass Coca-Cola bottle and the brunette Slayer couldn't make it any bigger without showing a bit more than she'd like to.

"At least Giles' outfit wasn't too crazy," Buffy said, looking towards the head of the Slayer Organization.

Indeed, the surrogate father figure looked the admiral of some unknown military wearing an obviously formal military uniform that was dominantly dark blue but with gold strips along the seams. He also wore a hat that sported an odd symbol that looked like an arch with three stars under it arranged in a triangle-like shape but the funniest part of the outfit was the fake goatee that Giles had on. They could all tell that it was bothering the former librarian like crazy and was probably reminiscent of wearing an itchy sweater except in goatee form and only around the mouth.

"Yes. Quite a relief to discover that I wouldn't have to wear something humiliating," Giles said, unconsciously straightening the uniform a bit. "Truth be told I find it rather nice to dress as an admiral for the night. Always did want to join the RAF but then the family calling became a rather dominant priority."

"Never really considered the military myself," Robin said from his place next to Faith. "Needed a job that would let me move around when I needed to. Kinda nice though that some of us match, though."

Indeed Robin's outfit looked like it came from the same shop as Faith's and Oz's with the same color scheme and the same odd symbol in the same place. However, looking at it, she could tell instead of looking like something you'd wear to a meeting of important people, the former principal looked like a soldier in his outfit. Bits of armor in all the right places as well as a belt that looked decidedly sturdier than anything you'd wear to a fancy dinner party or even an office meeting.

"Anyone seen Xander yet?" Dawn asked before casting her gaze about the gathered members of the Council. "I want to see what his costume looks like."

_Yeah, like we don't know what you're really after, _she thought as the others had similar looks in their eyes.

For the past 13 years Dawn Marie Summers had set her eyes on Xander with the intention of marrying him one day and hadn't strayed even once. Oh, she might've dated other guys from time to time but everyone knew that was just until she was of legal age so that the object of her affections wouldn't be able to use that against her when she began putting the moves on him. Buffy wasn't entirely in favor of the idea but the rest of them knew that was more a case of the senior slayer's big sister feelings rather than anything being wrong with Xander. Buffy was one of those people that, once she put a person in a specific category, she preferred that they stayed there until she said otherwise. Still, the fact that Buffy wasn't entirely against the idea was a good sign that she was doing her best to not interfere with her sister's right to choose.

"There he is," Faith said, spotting someone entering the room. "Hey boytoy! Over here!"

This served a dual purpose of letting Xander know where they were and setting off a wave of chuckles as each person had a different idea of what the nickname 'boytoy' implied about the senior member of the Organization. Those who knew both Xander and Faith well knew that there was nothing too indecent behind the selection of the nickname but she saw no harm in letting imaginations run free a bit.

Looking at her best friend, it didn't take her more than a second to examine his costume and she had to admit it looked good on him. Black armor with a red and white stripe down the right side and the designation 'N7' placed on the outfit just to the right of the center of his chest. He had what looked to be the armor's helmet under one arm as well as what looked to be the tops and bottoms of weapons sticking up over his shoulder. He looked every bit like a futuristic soldier and his eye patch actually sold the illusion of him being an experienced war hero better than if he'd put in his glass eye.

"Lookin' pretty badass there, Xan," Faith said once the final member of their core group arrived next to them. "I'm thinking maybe we should make it your official organization uniform for field work."

"Maybe I will," Xander said with mock seriousness. "It'd definitely be better than a jeans and T-shirt."

No one took it seriously since they all knew that in Africa the black armor would be unbearable to wear during the day and, while better at night temperature-wise, wouldn't protect him much against the things he hunted. The metal the costume was made out of was probably nowhere near as tough as real armor and, even if it was, most of the demons in that region that they knew about could pierce armor without much difficulty.

Letting the thought slide from her head, she turned to the food table as she was feeling a little hungry and wondered if the cooks made anything interesting.

_**A Hidden Chamber Beneath the Castle, An Hour Later, Posey's POV**_

_It's just about time to get things started,_ she thought as she locked the chamber behind her. _Better check to make sure I have everything because I doubt I'll get more than one try at it._

Setting the bag she'd been carrying down on the ground she began to empty it one item at a time while mentally going over the specifics of the spell as it'd been explained to her. She'd already gone over it easily a hundred times since the mage she'd consulted first told her everything about it but, since she was essentially a novice at casting spells, she was determined not to make a mistake. The Organization had several times encountered what happened when an amateur sorcerer or an arrogant warlock made a mistake when casting a spell. Either they overestimated their own reserves of magic or got sloppy with preparations for the spell, resulting usually in their deaths with the only variation being an immediate death or a lingering death. Since she wanted to live a long and healthy life, she was going to make sure that every last piece of what she was about to do was done perfectly.

The ingredients for the spell were identical to the Janus spell that the records said Ethan Rayne would have had to have used, however there were some additions she was making but that was unavoidable since the Janus spell was temporary and she wanted Andrew's changes to be more permanent. One was a vial of what appeared to be sand but was actually the ground remains of one of Jupiter's statues that resided in the oldest of the Roman god's temples. This would provide a little extra power to the spell, allowing Janus to effect more permanent changes than he could with just his own power. It would also compensate for the fact that the spell wasn't being cast on Halloween when the barriers between realms were weakest. The next item was a single fragment of metal that the Organization's supplier assured her had once been part of a creation forged by the god Vulcan. This would aid in turning Andrew's armor and weapons into the real deal rather than just some impressive looking props, allowing him to make up for the lack of Slayer powers or magic. A piece of a scroll said to have been touched by the god Mars was the next item she'd acquired with the intent of giving the focus of the spell the knowledge and the body of a true warrior. Lastly she had a thread taken from the robes of a head priestess at one of the smaller temples dedicated to the goddess Victoria to tilt the odds of Andrew emerging victorious even more in his favor.

She'd done the best she could in order to make sure that all of the gods and goddesses involved were of the same pantheon since she didn't want to risk a conflict between Greek and Roman deities. Too few people realized that the Roman gods and goddesses were not the Greek pantheon in disguise or with different names, but rather they were two completely different entities. The consequences of mistaking one for the other during spell casting according to the mage she'd consulted was usually nasty and potentially permanent. It ranged from simply being locked in a state of moderate pain for a week or so to being afflicted with a horrible ailment for the rest of the person's life.

Definitely not something she wanted to be on the receiving end of if she could avoid it.

After she'd confirmed all of the ingredients, she took out the tools needed to create the arcane circle on the floor of the chamber. The purpose of an arcane circle was to help the spell caster to channel the energies s/he was calling upon into the patterns required for a specific spell, or at least a specific end result. Only those who'd sacrificed something important to a demon lord could cast complex spells without the presence of an arcane circle or something similar that could aid them in controlling the forces they sought to use. Taking the container of specially prepared ink, she began to draw the circle, being careful with every stroke of the brush in order to ensure that everything was perfect.

It just wouldn't do for her to be smited because of sloppy brushwork or something like that.

Once the circle and all the necessary symbols were drawn she placed each of the gathered ingredients in their proper places, either in their containers or sprinkled in the right spots. Then came the preparations for herself and that meant dressing in clothes appropriate for someone calling upon a Roman god to lend his power to the spell, which was a toga of white and red that left only her head and arms bare as well as no shoes.

_Well this is it. What I've been preparing for,_ she thought as she stepped into the arcane circle with a bust of Janus in her arms. _Just take a deep breath, relax and follow every instruction to the letter._

Getting down onto both needs she recalled the words of the spell and after finding her center began to chant.

"Janus, I invoke your spirit. Hear my plea. Seize this night for your own. Come, appear and show all your infinite power," she chanted in front of the stone bust of Janus. "The garments become real, mind and body doth change, in your presence that which is false becomes true. Janus! Let your power bring about change unending! Take this night for your own!"

Like someone was literally yanking the life from her, she felt an incredible force yank on the Slayer essence within her even as other energies were guided into the pattern desired for the spell. It wasn't so much that she was in pain or anything but rather she felt as though she was on the verge of drowning due to the forces at work. Strength was absent within her body and trying to breath was like trying to do fifty repetitions in the weight room with her current weight limit on the bar. With every second that passed she became less and less confident that she'd be able to last another second, yet somehow she managed to anyway.

She knew not how long she remained conscious but, when her body finally reached its limits, consciousness fled her and the last thing she saw was green light rising up all around her, hiding the rest of the chamber from her sight.

On two different planes of existence two different beings bore witness to the young Slayer's efforts but they both added a little something to the mixture of energies that would have far reaching effects.

The first was the embodiment of beginnings and endings, of division of self, and the being for whom the spell being cast was originally intended. He had been alerted by a faithful worshipper of the Slayer's actions and it had amused him greatly that an agent for the so-called 'Powers-That-Be' would act to instill chaos rather than order. He had observed her as she went about gathering the necessary tools needed to perform the spell and, when she had selected the theme the costumes would be centered on, both of his faces had grinned. If he did lend his power in the way that the young woman desired then the plans of the lords and ladies of order would indeed be heavily damaged. Normally he would have been rather disappointed to find that only one costume had been properly enchanted but in this case he was not worried. There were others present at the party who had been affected by this very spell previously and, thanks to the changes the young Slayer had made, he could extend his power's reach to those close to them without much difficulty. The rest of his kin had already given their consent and contributed what they could to the spell without attracting unwanted attention so the changes those affected would undergo would indeed be great. Memories would be imprinted, bodies would be altered and weapons would be made as real as a sharp blade at your throat.

All in all, quite a bit of chaos would be created from what he was about to make happen.

The other was not a god per se but he did exist on a higher plane of existence. He had once been mortal, very much like the people of Earth before he and his fellow people learned how to ascend and achieve a form of non-corporeal existence. The others considered their current state to be enlightened and far superior to what they'd been before as mere mortals. He, on the other hand, considered it boring but wouldn't have minded so much if he could still interact freely with those still bound by organic shells. However virtually all of his brethren, with the exception of Oma Desala, forbade him from interfering in the affairs of the mortal races. He'd made a few attempts in the past millennia or so to sneak past them but those attempts all failed, so now they had him under close observation. Basically it was the human equivalent of posting guards outside his room and watching him through a surveillance camera albeit vastly more advanced. He could still go about what his fellow ascended beings considered a normal day but anything that even hinted he was attempting to influence the mortal realms was stopped in an instant. Truthfully he was about ready to tear his metaphorical hair out in boredom but now, with what he saw the young woman doing, he perceived a chance at entertainment and he was going to take it. He knew that there'd be some dimensional distortions in the next few minutes and it would be then that he would strike when his kin's grip on his leash was loosened.

Both beings, both mysteriously going by the name Janus, smiled at what was to come and with one voice spoke a single word that epitomized their thoughts at the moment.

"Showtime."

_**Earth, Scotland, HQ of the Slayer Organization**_

It moved with the speed of a massive shockwave, sweeping through the castle before the minds of those within could do more than sense something odd in the air. For some disorientation was the most they felt as their natural minds were tossed into their brain's metaphorical back seat in order to allow a new mind to take control.

For others, though, the effects were decidedly more dramatic and painful to varying degrees.

For Xander Harris, Rupert Giles, Robin Wood and Daniel 'Oz' Osborne the changes to their bodies were relatively minor but, without the presence of painkillers, still hurt like a sunuvabitch. Bodies were altered to better match the beings who they were dressed up as and that meant the regeneration of an eye in a matter of seconds, as well as modifications beneath the skin to accommodate certain abilities. Buffy Summers, Dawn Summers, Willow Rosenberg, Faith Lehane and Andrew Wells on the other hand underwent changes of a more… life altering nature. Measurements changed, the color of their skin became somewhat different as well as in composition of the skin and it wouldn't be inaccurate at all to say that for some they ceased to be even remotely human.

However it was when the spell began its work on Dawn Summers, the Key made flesh, that things took a turn that only a few could have seen coming.

Only a few in the higher realms and even less in the lower dimensions knew of the change that the mystical energy known as 'the Key' had undergone years ago. They knew that it had been changed by the Monks of Dagon from a concentration of dimensional energy into a fourteen year old human female, the little sister of the Slayer Buffy Summers, in order to hide it from the hell goddess known as Glorificus. The warrior of Sunnydale fought bravely to protect her little sister but the demoness that preferred the name Glory succeeded in capturing her prey. Despite the best efforts of Buffy and her allies, they were unable to prevent the blood from flowing from Dawn's body, causing ruptures in the walls between dimensions to manifest and grow. It took Buffy throwing herself into the maelstrom of dimensional energies and dying to seal the ruptures, saving the all realities in the process. She got better, eventually, once the promising wicca Willow Rosenberg cast a spell of resurrection bringing her back to life but as for Dawn, most believed that their Key problems were over with. They believed that whatever energies might have been contained within the flesh and blood body of the young woman were no longer there and therefore no longer an issue.

They were wrong.

Just because the optimum time for using them had come and gone didn't mean that they were not lying dormant within the shell that had been crafted by the monks to hide it. Under almost all circumstances save a few it would be beyond the reach of forces both intelligent and primal to use it in any useful manner. However, as any practitioner of the arcane arts would tell you, it is never a good idea to mix two distinctly different magical energies and it only got worse the more diametrically opposite the two were. This could not be more so than in this particular case when a well of energy constrained by forces of order to maintain a specific form had powerful forces of chaos thrust upon it like a tsunami. Thus, due to the efforts of the Roman god Janus and his ascended counterpart, the collision between their powers and the energies of the Key unleashed a shockwave rippled outwards away from the castle. No longer was it confined to those clad in the garb of fictional characters but neither was it given specific purpose, so therefore its effects on the rest of the world were for the most part random and inconsequential.

A man in the Saudi Arabia might suddenly remember where a tomb filled with treasure is located.

A woman in China might be saved from an untimely car crash instead of perishing as she otherwise would have had the wave of energy not hit her.

A young man in Canada might catch the eye of a beautiful woman who might not have noticed him had her attention not been directed towards him.

However most does not mean all and it is one effect of the wave of energy that would have repercussions beyond what could be measured in a moment.

_**Colorado Springs, Colorado**_

_**Cheyenne Mountain Complex, One Thousand Meters Below Ground Level**_

_**SGC, Stargate Operations Room, Major Samantha Carter's POV**_

"How's it coming Walter?" she asked as she continued her work installing the new encryption subroutines into the dialing computer's primary systems.

"Almost done with the secondary systems, Major," Walter replied as he worked from his own computer, doing the same thing she was doing albeit to different systems.

It had been only a week since Teal'c had successfully returned to normal and rid himself of Apophis' brainwashing but that still left them with a bit of work to do. There was no way of knowing how much classified SGC information the former First Prime of Apophis had passed on to his former master that might have then made it off the mother ship prior to its destruction. As a result she'd been ordered by General Hammond to oversee all password and encryption alterations on the base, starting with the dialing computer.

The last thing they needed was for a system lord to somehow override the iris and start sending Jaffa through the stargate.

Typing away, she hoped that nothing happened before they finished or not only could there be programming issues with the dialing computer but they'd also have to reinstall the encryption software all over again. Considering how many other things she had on her plate, that was not something she wanted to see happen so she did what she could to speed up her work.

It wasn't fast enough.

Without warning a wave of emerald energy washed over her and, while it left her as well as the dialing computer alone, the same could not be said for the stargate itself. As soon as the wave hit it, crackling bolts of energy danced frantically over its surface like the world's biggest bug zapper and, much to her surprise, the inner ring of the device began to spin.

It began to spin FAST and was only accelerating as time passed.

At first she thought it was a simple overloading of the system but, when the computer in front of her suddenly began to spit sparks, she knew it was more than that. This was proven to be the case all the more so when the screen began to run through the dialing procedure and successfully encoded the first chevron. Without even needing to say anything she knew that Walter was working on his computer to try and restore order, as well as abort the dialing procedure. They'd worked together for so long they no longer needed to tell the other what they'd be doing and what the other would need to do. With the absence of words their efforts went much quicker but they were not rewarded for their efforts as the dialing process continued uninterrupted. Her scientific mind raced to figure out what was happening so that she could at least come up with the basis of a solution but the phenomena was unlike anything she'd previously encountered. If she had more time, if she had access to proper equipment, she could gather information necessary for a solution but it was clear that she would be given the time or the equipment.

"Chevron seven encoded and locked!" Walter announced just before the event horizon of the artificial wormhole gushed forth from the stargate before settling into a circle of blue energy.

At that moment two things happened that only added to the bizarreness of the situation.

First the spinning of the inner ring seemed to intensify and increase the energy that was crackling around it until it was almost impossible to see the gray Naquadah parts of the superconductor. Then, with all the speed of a striking serpent, the emerald energy leapt into the event horizon, disappearing from sight as the wormhole collapsed behind it. This was not the only aftereffect of the disappearance of the energy, though. Seconds later the dialing computer that had been taken over by the unknown phenomena sparked violently once more then died.

"Carter! What the hell is going on here?!" Colonel O'Neill exclaimed as he entered the operations room. "Half the fuses in this place have been melted and Siler is throwing a fit because of all the work that just got dumped in his lap."

Looking about the room and down to the stargate that had steam rising from it in a way that did not indicate an easy fix, she could only say one thing.

"I don't know, sir."

Unfortunately for the galaxy there was one being who did know what was going on because he was very much responsible for at least half of it. The ascended Lantean had watched as his other dimensional counterpart had poured the great and chaotic energy across the planet Earth but when it reached the Astria Porta beneath the mountain, that was when he intervened. With the dimensional ether still in flux due to the involvement of 'The Key', his kin had no means to restrain him at the moment, though that could change at any moment. Deciding to make sure that he had his way before they could stop him, he immediately began to influence the 'stargate' so that it dialed a very specific planet. This world had gained many names over the years since he and his kin first set foot on it ages ago but the people who dwelt there now called it one thing alone.

Dakara.

It was there that one of his people's greatest creations was made for the purpose of reseeding the galaxy with life once the plague had finished running its course. However, to create, one must first destroy so to use it the normal way, the way it was designed to be used, could indeed obliterate all organic life in the galaxy but fortunately he had other plans.

As soon as the energy arrived on Dakara, he immediately directed it to the weapon and began to bring it all online. It caused such a commotion among the local Jaffa and their so-called masters that he couldn't help but chuckle at what he saw as it amused him. However he soon focused his mind as the activation process of the device soon reached the point where it would begin to draw great amounts of power for the massive discharge to come. When the moment arrived he substituted the energy that would normally be used for that which he had brought to Dakara and watched as the final stage of his master plan took effect.

With all the speed of an unstoppable force, a field of emerald energy was sent forth from the device crawling over the planet itself and, as part of the process, also being sent through the stargate itself to another world. This process repeated itself on numerous worlds over and over again at such a speed that, by the time he felt his kin's hooks sinking into him again, it was already too late to undo what he'd done.

The effects of the energy created by the merger of his energy, the energy belonging to his other dimensional counterpart and the Key's energy had just finished covering everything within range.

Everything within the Milky Way had been touched by this energy until, with one final pulse caused by it hitting so many places at once, it flowed out of the galaxy like a giant ripple that vanished into the darkness between galaxies.

Things had changed and it would be interesting to see how things developed in the next year or so before the group he referred to as The Boring Ones tried to impose their definition of order on the mortal realm.

_This'll be fun, _he thought as he began to chuckle at what his imagination was providing him with. _A LOT of fun!_

_**Scotland, Slayer Organization Castle, Late Evening**_

_**Commander Alexander Shepard's POV**_

"Anyone get the name of the cruiser that ran me over?" he groaned as he pushed himself off the ground despite the aches that existed throughout his body.

His mind was… jumbled… as he looked about the room he was now in he tried to figure out how he'd gotten there but all he got was a thick haze of nothing that he couldn't pierce no matter how hard he tried. The last thing he could clearly recall was walking through the hanger of the Normandy SR-2, dealing with the aftermath of their strike on the Collector Base. They'd been lucky in that they hadn't lost anyone and managed to escape with the ship more or less intact but he knew that a major hurdle was ahead of him. Like it or not he had to answer for what happened in the Bahak system because the deaths of three hundred thousand sentient beings wasn't something you could just sweep under the galactic carpet.

Nor was destroying a mass relay.

Still, if he had to do it all over again, he'd still destroy the mass relay since it was either that or let the Reapers invade right then and there. Maybe he'd remember to bring some of Tali's programs so he could have a better chance of warning the people on Aratoht about what was about to happen but that was it. Nevertheless, he had to answer for it and he remembered that he'd just been about to give Joker the order to set course for the nearest major spaceport so he could drop off anyone who didn't want to go to Earth when… when everything went blank and he found himself here.

_Wherever here is,_ he thought before he heard numerous groans similar to his own occurring all around him.

Looking around, he was comforted to see most of his team had been brought along for whatever ride he was on and were apparently in similar shape. Kasumi, Tali, Liara, Jacob, Miranda, Grunt and Joker he could see easily but what surprised him was that Admiral Hackett was there as well. He had thought that any phenomena that could've abducted his crew would've been restricted to the Normandy itself. Last he'd heard, Admiral Hackett was with the Fifth Fleet trying to quietly increase Earth's defenses in preparation for the Reapers.

That was clearly not the case.

"No, but if you ever find out I'd appreciate it if you could pass its' name along," Miranda said with her usual sharp tongue. "I'd like to have a few 'words' with them."

Right then and there he almost felt sorry for whoever was responsible for their relocation because, once the former Cerberus biotic found them, there wouldn't be enough left to fill a teaspoon.

"Get in line," Jacob groaned as he got to his feet.

Once he managed to get on his own feet he looked around to take better stock of the situation so he could formulate a course of action for them. From what he could tell, aside from the specialists he'd already identified, the rest of the people in the room were either civilians or Normandy crew members and this only lent further confusion in the sense that there seemed to be no criteria for the abductions. None of them appeared to need medical attention from what he could see but they were all just as disoriented as he was. Turning to the others, he decided it was time to see if they had any more assets beyond what was currently on site.

"This is Commander Sheperd of the Normandy to any vessels within range. Please respond," he said, activating his sub-dermal communicator behind his right ear. "I repeat if there's anyone who can receive this signal, please respond."

"Normandy here, commander," came a familiar digitized voice through his communicator.

"EDI! What's your status?" he asked glad to know that they could very well have the Normandy at their disposal.

"I am functioning within normal parameters, Commander, however several ship systems suffered some damage during whatever phenomena we experienced," EDI replied, sounding a little annoyed at the lack of facts. "I have enacted what repairs I can however my sensors detect no life forms aboard the Normandy so I am limited in what I can do. Nevertheless I have managed to achieve stable geosynchronous orbit above your current position."

"Yeah. Looks like most of the crew is down here along with some civilians I don't recognize," he said, turning back to Joker and the others. "We're all okay aside from not knowing how we got here. Anything you can tell me?"

"We are currently in the Sol system and you are on Earth on the northern tip of the country known as Scotland in what appears to be a remodeled and restored castle." EDI declared after taking a moment to access the necessary facts.

"We're back on Earth? Did the relay in the galactic core throw us here somehow?" he asked, unsure as to how they'd managed to make it all the way home otherwise.

"I do not believe so. Once I discerned where we were I conducted a scan of the system and found no Alliance ships, colonies or technology within range." EDI replied with barely perceivable concern.

"What?! What happ-?!" he asked before being interrupted by Joker.

"Commander! Liara's not waking up!" Joker said, sounding distinctly worried as he knelt over the Asari doctor's still body.

"She's alive, Shepard, but I'm getting some odd brainwave patterns," Tali said as she scanned their unconscious friend with her omni-tool. "I'm no doctor but I seriously doubt this is a good thing."

"EDI? Can you pilot a shuttle down by remote control?" he asked the A.I through the communicator. "Something's wrong with Liara."

"Acknowledged, Shepard. I will send down a shuttle to your location immediately," EDI said in a slightly distracted tone. "However I will need to land five hundred yards from the castle itself. There is an unidentified energy field enveloping the castle that would disrupt my connection to the shuttle, potentially resulting in a crash landing."

"We'll be there!" he said before turning to the others. "Shuttle's coming down outside this place. Let's move!"

He moved and scooped up Liara in his arms and made his way to the nearest door that looked like it might be a way outside. Without missing a beat Tali and the others brought their favorite weapons to bear and took up positions around him, keeping an eye out for potential hostiles. While this might seem a little paranoid, it was the only practical thing to do considering they had no idea where they were or who they might encounter along the way. However, as he moved, he made sure to take notice of the things in the environment around just in case it might give him a clue as to how they'd all gotten here. From what he could tell, all of the tech, odds and ends he was seeing didn't match anything he'd seen the last time he was on Earth so he wasn't getting any answers just more questions.

Fate, however, took pity on him because as he passed a table he spotted something he'd seen at his grandfather's place when he was little. It was a newspaper, something you could get just about anywhere before the extranet became the dominant form of media distribution, so he took a moment to look at the date on it so he could at least get that much information.

May 20th, 2009

This almost made him stop in his tracks but he managed to keep himself moving despite, the shock of finding out that either this place had a thing for old newspapers or they'd somehow been transported over a century and a half into the past. It made no sense since, even with all the advances in technology that they got from mass effect technology as well as the Council races, time travel was still very much in the realm of science fiction. Shaking his head, he decided he'd wait until he got to more comfortable surroundings aboard the Normandy before he made any more attempts to figure out what the hell was going on.

Looking back over his shoulder, he could see that the rest of the Normandy crew were following them even though they'd have to do trips back and forth to get them all up to the SR-2. Still he had to admit that they'd need more than just him and the other specialists in order to run the Normandy so that they could find a way back home.

As for the civilians… he'd have to learn more about them before he decided whether or not to let them come on board the Normandy. The last thing he needed was to let an undercover Cerberus operative who's still loyal to the Illusive Man on board the Normandy.

_**Behind a Boulder a Thousand Yards From the Slayer Organization Castle, Whistler's POV**_

_**An Hour and a Half Later**_

_About time the last of them went up to the ship, _he thought as he watched the sci-fi shuttle accelerate into the sky with the last group of people. _Now I can sneak in and do my job. Just hope this piece of bling does its job._

Just to be on the safe side he waited another fifteen minutes before heading for the front gate of the castle so as to make sure no one spotted him out of the back window of the shuttle. Looking down at the piece of jewelry that looked like it could've been bought at 'Tiffany's', he patted it slightly in order to reassure himself that it would do its job. He moved at a pace that was as brisk as he could manage, given that he wasn't the most athletic of the PTBs servants. Normally he wouldn't be forced to do anything as troublesome as jogging, he'd just flicker into whatever place he needed to get inside, but getting into the castle wasn't going to be that easy. Despite her not even being fifty, Summers' redheaded friend was coming along by leaps and bounds in the mojo department. The wards and spells Rosenberg had put up around the castle were nothing to sneeze at even for some of the heavy hitters of paranormal side of the world. Oh, she wasn't unbeatable yet or even in the top fifteen most skilled or most powerful sorceresses on the planet, but if she were an athlete people would definitely be scouting her. As a result of her current power level and the protections that'd been put on the castle, trying to flicker in there would be quite lethal for him.

_Since I ain't a big fan of dying and my bosses aren't forgiving of failure, I'm getting a workout instead._

Indeed, he'd been called to the chambers of the Powers That Be mere moments after the dimensional chaos wave had passed over him and to call what they were in a 'bad mood' would have been the understatement of several lifetimes. With a single spell, all but the most minor of their plans had been reduced to so much ash since, not only had the senior members of the Slayer Organization been affected, but the entire galaxy as well.

THE ENTIRE GALAXY!

Never in all his centuries of service to the PTBs had he ever witnessed a single spell having such widespread consequences for this reality and he'd seen quite a bit. He'd thought that they might have some kind of plan for undoing the damage and putting things back to normal but, when he'd voiced this, they'd only glared at him harder with rage. Apparently because of Janus' nature and the fact that he had outside help, the most they might've been able to do was carry out a massive temporal fold that would reset things back far enough for them to fix things. However, since their jurisdiction didn't extend past this particular solar system, the rest of the Milky Way galaxy would remain changed and that would put Earth at a serious disadvantage. When he'd asked what they meant by that they gave him a look that almost made him piss his pants right there and quickly flickered to where he'd been a couple of minutes ago.

_Whatever's going on has their blood pressure hittin' the red zone. _He reached the edge of Rosenberg's wards, _Better finish this mission and give them something to be happy about real fast._

Reaching up to the bling his bosses had given him, he plucked one of the four smaller stones hanging from the large central one and threw it at the air in front of him. It flew no more than a few feet before it stopped mid-air and began to shine with an inner light before shattering into dust that formed a basic arch through which he could pass. Darting through before the arch vanished, he immediately noticed the central stone beginning to glow confirming what he'd been told about a species ID spell inside the first ward. Fortunately the central stone would make him appear to be a normal human with NO intentions whatsoever and that'd confuse the spell long enough for him to do what he came to do.

The front gate to the castle was wide open so he didn't have any trouble getting in there and could only smile at the bit of luck as he proceeded. Once he was inside the castle he began to follow the directions he'd been given for the secret chamber where the whole mess began, wanting nothing more than to complete his assignment.

Once the spell was broken is was pretty much guaranteed that one of two things would happen: either the people that went up in space would die when the effects of the spell vanished or they'd come back down to the castle once they were back in control of their bodies. In either event he wanted to be gone by the time anyone came to investigate what happened, especially if it was that Buffy chick since he still remembered her threat concerning his rib cage. If it turned out that they died in space when everything disappeared, the Slayers at the other branches would likely come to investigate after a certain period of time and he doubted that they'd approve of him being there when they arrived.

_Times like these I REALLY want to kick myself for signing that damn contract!_ he thought as he reached the hidden entrance to the chamber he needed to get into.

Pressing the right points on the wall, he watched as the stone surface slid away, revealing a staircase leading downwards. Step by step he went and every moment of his descent only intensified the feeling of magic in the air, confirming that he was getting closer to the source of the spell. The feeling from the air he was getting was seriously giving him a case of the heebie-jeebies but his resolve to complete his assignment forced him to go onwards. He eventually reached the bottom only to find the Slayer responsible for the mess lying down in an arcane circle that was pulsing with green light. However his only concern was the stone bust of the Roman god Janus in the center since his superiors told him that the second that thing was smashed it was mission accomplished.

_Looks like the girl got hit with some serious sensory overload._ He looked down at the dazed and groaning Slayer. _Probably riding the happy train with Janus thanks to all the chaos that's been stirred up. Hope you had your fill, girl, 'cause when you come to your senses you're in for a rude awakening._

Once he was in front of the stone bust he could see that it was practically vibrating with power and, for a moment, he considered finding something to smash it with rather than touching it directly. However, when he could not see anything that would be easy for him to pick up he sighed and, with some hesitation, picked the bust up off the floor. He raised it high above his head and, with as much strength as he felt was needed, threw it against the wall on the far side of the chamber. It struck just like he'd known it would but, as it shattered, it released one final pulse of power that sent him right onto his ass. However it wasn't just the shockwave of chaotic energy that knocked him off his feet but also the blitzkrieg of images that assaulted his mind in the space of two seconds. He couldn't make them all out but he did know that they touched something primal within him and caused fear bordering on terror to thrum throughout his body.

_W-what…what the h-hell…was that!? _he thought as he unconsciously put distance between himself and the remains of the bust.

He might not've been the bravest balance demon around but after all the things he'd seen and heard about in service to the Powers That Be, it still took a lot to scare him. To actually push him to the brink of pure terror… he didn't want to think one moment more on what held the potential to do something like that. Instead he got to his feet and ran out of the castle as quickly as he could and, the moment he was clear of Rosenberg's wards, he flickered back to his masters. He'd give them the report of a job well done and then go to his favorite bar so he could get so stinking drunk that it'd reduce his short term memory to shit. He didn't care if he woke up the next day with the mother of all hangovers.

All that mattered was ridding himself of his fear as soon as possible.

_**Aboard the Normandy SR-2**_

_**Minutes Before the Breaking of the Janus Spell**_

_**Tali'Zorah nar Rayya's POV**_

_I know I should have some idea of how to handle this but I don't,_ she thought looking down at the unconscious form of Liara. _I'm an engineer for keelah's sake, NOT a doctor!_

As soon as they'd gotten on board the Normandy they'd noticed some irregularities but Shepard hadn't cared about that, going to the elevator immediately. Admiral Hacket volunteered to stay behind and supervise bringing up the crew still on the planet and the civilians that had been mysteriously displaced with them. Once the rest of them had caught up to Shepard in the sick bay, they'd seen him going about the place with the same resolve and efficiency he displayed on the battlefield. They'd been able to see that he had already applied a generous amount of medi-gel and seemed to be searching for anything more he could use but she'd been able to see from the beginning that he was at the end of the rope. It'd been then that she and Joker had convinced him to let her look after their friend since she'd have more experience medically than him. The truth though was they were concerned that in his rush to find a means of helping Liara, he might accidentally do more harm than good. All of them barely reached the level of competent helper when it came to medicine but, without Dr. Chakwas present to help them, she was the best option of them all to help the Asari.

That was over an hour ago and she had administered some medicine to boost her friend's immune system to fight off whatever was wrong with her. She had also tried a few mild stimulants on the off chance that it might help the blue skinned woman regain consciousness but nothing happened. The woman's brainwave patterns were still unlike anything she'd seen and even EDI couldn't find a match for them in the sick bay's medical library. In the end she was forced to accept that all they could do was wait and hope for the best, no matter how frustrating it might be to do nothing.

Hearing the door to the room open, she turned her head and saw Shepard stride in, still clad in his N7 armor but it was clear from the look in his eyes what he wanted to know.

"I've done everything I can, Shepard, but I'm not a doctor." She half turned to the medical bed upon which their friend lay. "I don't think she's getting any worse but she's not getting any better either."

Without saying a word the commander of the Normandy went over to the bedside of the person who'd been through so much with all of them.

"She's a fighter. She'll make it," Shepard said, sounding more like he was trying to convince himself than her.

"If the Shadow Broker couldn't stop her then this… whatever it is won't either."

Silence followed for a minute or two before her longtime friend put aside his own worry over Liara's health and focused more on his responsibilities as well as his duty.

"I've had Joker put us in orbit on the dark side of Earth's moon until we sort all this out. I need you to go down to engineering and work with Kenneth and Gabby to repair the damage to the ship. When we've finished giving everything the once over and decide on a course of action, I want the Normandy ready to go. Also let me know if you spot anything during the repairs that might give us a hint about how we got here."

"Consider it done. I'll have the Normandy back in perfect shape inside of a day," she said before turning towards the entrance to the sick bay.

She didn't get much further than that before a wave of disorientation and displacement washed over her, causing her to drop to her knees since she no longer had enough focus to devote to standing. Her last coherent thought before everything became a haze was a Quarian curse aimed at whoever was responsible for getting her into this mess.

_**Willow's POV**_

"Uhhhhhh… I haven't felt this bad since the first few times I tried spirit walking," she mumbled as she waited for her body to stop acting like it was still in a blender. "Don't want to do… whatever this is… again either."

"I don't blame you," came Xander's voice from behind her, sounding like he wasn't doing much better than her.

Carefully turning herself around, she began to realize that their situation might be a bit more serious than a relatively simple case of spiritual destabilization. The first thing she noticed was the fact that she wasn't in the castle banquet hall like she remembered, but rather one of the most advanced infirmaries she'd ever been in. It also looked vaguely familiar but that line of thought ended when she saw Xander because, last time she checked, he had one eye and an eye patch, not two eyes and no eyepatch.

"Xander, your eyes!" she exclaimed as she crawled over to him on her hands and knees since she didn't feel quite steady enough yet to justify trying to walk.

"What about my… my eyes!" Xander exclaimed, taking a second to realize what she meant.

With all the grace of a drunken hobo her friend tried to get to his feet and, when he eventually succeeded, he quickly moved to the first reflective surface he saw, which was the observation window that dominated the left wall of the sick bay. For a minute her friend did nothing but examine the newly returned eye from every angle to make sure he wasn't seeing things and that it was exactly what it appeared to be. It was almost funny how thorough he was being about it but after a few minutes she decided that they needed to focus more on where they were and what was going on rather than Xander's newly recovered depth perception. Deciding to chance getting to her feet, she planted one foot and then, once she was satisfied with how steady it was, she extended it and immediately put her other foot down as a brief moment of dizziness hit her. Once it passed she walked over to Xander she reached up to put a hand on his shoulder to get his attention. That was when she noticed something disturbingly different about it:

It had two fingers and a thumb.

It was supposed to have four fingers and a thumb.

Almost out of some sort of insane belief that the hand in front of her wasn't her own she mentally commanded her fingers to curl into a fist, only to watch with growing denial as the hand in front of her responded to her mental commands.

"Wha-what's happened…!?" she asked unconsciously, barely even registering the tone attached to someone freaking out seeping from every word.

Almost as though half her mind was still in control, enough to run through the scientific method, she began to systematically test every limb and digit mentally to see if anything failed to respond quickly enough. She wanted to find any discrepancy, any flaw that could give her a leg to stand on so she could believe that her commands were merely being routed to some robot body. However, the more she tried, the more everything seemed to be responding as though it was her real body and that only increased the freakiness of the situation. She was about to lose it completely when a pair of strong hands grasped her shoulders and she looked up to see Xander looking back at her with unquestionable resolve in his eyes.

"I don't know, Willow. I think we're all pretty much in the same boat here." His calm, steady voice was impressive, all things considered. "But you need to keep it together. We'll figure out what happened and then you and Giles can go research crazy and figure out a way to fix all this. We've done it before and we'll do it now. Okay?"

Looking into his eyes, she was reminded of all the times that she'd been in a serious pinch and he'd looked at her just as he was right then. She took such comfort in his resolve and it was no different now, despite the fact that it was just a **bit** different than the things they'd encountered in the past.

"EDI? Give me shipwide communications," Xander said, looking up at where he probably figured the… the A.I was.

_Keelah! I-I know things… _she thought as memories and information she knew didn't belong in her head slid into place the moment there was a need for either.

Definitely not like other times.


	2. Developments and Directions

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted material contained herein. They are the rightful property of their creators and associated companies. I make no profit off of this whatsoever and I have no intention of changing this in the future. I write for fun and because there are those who enjoy reading my work.

Note: Sorry for the long wait. Real Life and more specifically my new job has been demanding my undivided attention since business picks up there around the holidays.

_**Normandy SR-2's Briefing/Communications Room, Half an Hour Later**_

_**Buffy 'Kasumi' Summers' POV**_

"So what's the what?" she asked, trying to keep her attention on the central topic of discussion.

Something that wasn't easy when, every time her eyes settled on some piece of tech or something in the room, a part of her mind that wasn't there before automatically quoted how many credits she could get for it. Deciding she didn't like those thoughts, she'd tried to focus on people but that eventually led her to settling on Robin and that meant thoughts that she wasn't supposed to be having about a man who used to be ten years older than her. Sure, the alien part of her mind was substituting the name 'Robin' for 'Jacob' but to her it was all the same 'not-going-there' thing, so naturally she did her best to look elsewhere. Now, though, every senior member of the Slayer Organization was present except for her sister, with the others listening in via the ship's internal communications system.

And boy was that a new concept to grasp.

Normal life she could handle, life as the Slayer she'd eventually come to accept, but being on a spaceship with tech straight out of a sci-fi movie was going take a bit longer to get used to.

"Well, from what I've been able to determine from my own imposed memories and my discussion with Willow, it appears to be a somewhat amplified version of Ethan's Halloween spell." Giles replied with a decidedly deeper and more commanding British voice. "As you've no doubt realized the physical changes are decidedly more dramatic and, even with the spell broken, they've remained. I can only surmise that some additional factor was introduced into the spell that made the physical changes more thorough and… self-sustaining."

"After we formed the Organization, one of the first things I did was look through their library for the spells and demons we bumped into back in Sunnydale," Willow said with her new digitized voice that was definitely different. "To cast the Janus spell you need to be within half mile of the people you want to effect. You can't be in one country and the targets be in another."

"You saying someone did this right under our noses?!" Faith asked, sounding quite upset but not at any of them.

"Yes, and considering all the various possibilities I can only surmise that either Posey is the culprit or they used her to make sure we were affected by the spell," Giles replied, sounding like he'd be having a few words with the young Slayer when they met next. "It is essential to the spell for the costumes to be treated prior to the spell. It is not something one can do days in advance."

"But why would she do this?" asked the Krogan that the new part of her mind labeled as Grunt but had already proven to her satisfaction to be Andrew.

BIG surprise there!

Looking at the big lizard alien, she couldn't see anything there that reminded her of the still somewhat geeky blonde who had evolved from a simpering lackey to a respectable man. However all she had to do was wait for the growly being to open his mouth and she could tell in an instant that it was Andrew.

"Unknown. We'll have to ask her personally once we return to the castle." Giles said, genuinely sounding like he didn't know.

"Small problem with that," Oz said, standing up straight, making him seem odd to her. "Lots of eyes in the sky and on the ground. Stealth systems are good but no protection against being eyeballed."

"He has a point," Robin said with a professional tone. "The tech we have today is less about sensing energy and more about cameras video or otherwise. We try going to or from Earth in the Normandy and we'll be spotted and probably set off one helluva shitstorm in the process."

She couldn't dispute that.

It was one of the things she'd been forced to deal with since the Slayer Organization was founded: politics. In order to go where they needed to and do what they needed to, agreements had to be made with virtually every major nation on the planet with long, boring contracts to read through. Fortunately Giles was quick to realize that making her sit through all of the meetings was a recipe for disaster and, after the first three, found reasons for her to be elsewhere. However every time they stopped a potential apocalypse in one country or another, all of the suits got their panties in a bunch demanding a full explanation as well as equal say on how things would be handled. Quite frankly it was a pain in the ass every time and it made her wish that they'd just stay out of the Organization's way and only lend help when asked for. Giles, however, made it clear that they needed to stay on good terms with the governments of the world so compromising where possible was necessary.

This particular situation, though, was going to be trouble no matter how they painted it.

"Do you think you could rig some sort of stealth system for the shuttle, Willow?" Xander asked with a commanding presence he'd developed over the years. "If you're anything like me you have a separate set of memories and skill set in your head, so you should be pretty much as good as Tali when it comes to tech."

For a few seconds Willow didn't say anything and, while some might take this to be thinking, she had a feeling it was much more profound than that. Thanks to the spell, three members of their group had changed species and her reluctantly acquired second set of memories told her that Willow had definitely gotten the shitty end of the stick with her transformation. Her mind was filled with facts about the Quarian people and how they were pretty much sealed away inside of their high tech environmental suits. Apparently their immune system tipped heavily on the weak side, so the slightest exposure to an unfiltered environment meant either getting very sick, or perhaps even dying. Then, of course, there was the fact that things like eating and drinking would, for the time being, have to be done decidedly differently than Willow was used to and… yeah, Willow was definitely silent because of all the locked doors she had to deal with now.

"Maybe. I'll have to do some research before I can give a definite yea or nay on that." Willow replied finally.

"I'll be waiting," Xander said before turning to the rest of them. "I know we're all more than a little wierded out by the new info bouncing around inside our heads but for now we're going to have to make use it so we can survive long enough for Admiral Giles and Willow can figure out how to fix things. Therefore I'd appreciate it if all of you use your new skill sets to give the Normandy the once over and fix anything that needs fixing."

Everyone nodded at that, herself included, even though she doubted any of them could see the point in having their own spaceship. All of their enemies were on Earth and using the Normandy to kill any of them would be gross overkill and draw way too much attention to their activities. Plus, when Giles figured out how to fix it all, the ship would probably disappear into nothingness just like how it appeared.

_The nerds would probably want to keep it but, if it has to go in order for everyone to get their own bodies back, then it's SO gone, _she thought as everyone began to file out of the room and head for the places that their new skill sets could be of use.

_**Colorado Springs, Cheyenne Mountain, SGC, Briefing Room, Noon the Next Day**_

_**Colonel Jack O'Neill's POV**_

"How long will it take to get the dialing computer and the Stargate operational again?" General Hammond asked after Carter finished summarizing the damage.

"At least twelve hours and that's being optimistic," Carter replied without looking at her notepad. "All of the hardware connected to the gate got hit with a massive overload of energy. With melted parts and corrupted software, twelve hours is the soonest we'll be able to resume gate travel."

"Then I guess it's a good thing that no one's on a field trip," he commented flippantly as he was genuinely glad that there were no SG teams off world at the moment.

Whether it'd been dumb luck or divine intervention, they'd been lucky that no one had been on a mission when things went kablooie, otherwise a lot of people could've been in for a rough twelve hours. Apophis might've been turned into ash along with the replicators on his ship but that didn't mean that the rest of the snakeheads had learned how to play nice with others. In fact, with another one of their buddies biting the dust, it probably meant that they'd be looking to glass Earth more than ever before.

_I hope they wait a few more weeks before they unleash their villainous plot. _ _I could use the extra down time._

Contrary to the front he put on for the rest of his team, most of the time he felt each and every one of his years, especially after a particularly physical mission. Janet knew to have ice packs and a bottle of aspirin on hand after those missions and Hammond knew to give him a few days before sending back out into the galaxy. Still, he wasn't about to let it show enough for everyone to start giving him the old man treatment because, when it counted, he could still pull his weight in the field. He figured he had at least another three or four years before he'd have to bow out of field work and either retire or find a way to endure a desk job.

"See what you can do to trim it down a little further," General Hammond said after Carter finished her 'summary' of the numerous things that would need to be repaired. "We may need to contact the Tok'ra sooner rather than later."

"What do you mean, sir?" Carter asked, voicing what everyone else in the room was wondering.

"When the energy wave disrupted the systems attached to the Stargate, they also temporarily disrupted our connection to the early warning satellites in orbit." Hammond replied before removing a set of pictures from a folder in front of him and putting them in the middle of the table. "The technicians were able to re-establish the connection thirty minutes later and the first thing the satellites detected was a ship in orbit above the United Kingdom."

Curiosity getting the better of him and his team, they took one of the photographs but, when his eyes beheld the picture properly, he decided to give voice to the first thought that appeared in his mind. "Is this a joke?!"

"Why do you say that, Colonel?" Hammond asked, sounding genuinely confused by his exclamation.

"It's the Normandy! A fictional ship from a video game!" he said, slapping the picture down on the table and pointing at it. "There's no way it popped up in orbit!"

Indeed he was able to identify the ship almost instantly because, while the team was on leave a few months back, he was playing it on his XBOX and quite enjoying it. He liked the way it had certain parallels with his own life fighting aliens and uncovering ancient races but there was no way he could believe that someone had actually created it and put it in orbit.

"As unbelievable as it might seem, Colonel, there's no mistake." George said with the utmost seriousness. "The technicians responsible for the satellites examined the data thoroughly and even recalibrated to ensure the authenticity of the images. The only other thing they could've done was send up a shuttle to physically inspect the relevant satellites in person."

"I don't think it has anything to do with the satellites themselves, Colonel," Carter said, examining each of the photos in turn. "If there'd been physical tampering with the satellites we would know about it. Unless they had a cloaked ship, it would've been impossible to approach any of them without being spotted by one of the others."

"Then how do you explain a space ship from la-la land showing up in orbit?" he asked, unable to come up with a satisfactory explanation himself.

"Well, without gathering more data, I can't really theorize but it's possible that an alien race somehow acquired information on the Normandy and decided to create one for themselves." she said, offering a tentative theory that would fit the facts.

"This isn't 'Galaxy Quest', Captain." he pointed out, referring to the movie where aliens based their entire society on a bad 60s TV show. "Besides, the game only came out last year. If any aliens came to Earth to shop I think we would've heard something."

Sure, he knew that there were probably ten different ways that an alien could conceal themselves both from the satellites and from problems on the planet's surface. Still, he just couldn't accept the idea that there was a real Normandy spaceship flying about space at the moment. It was just too surreal that something from the imaginations of a dozen or so computer nerds put into a game and sold for seventy bucks a pop.

"Regardless of its origins, Colonel, it needs to be investigated." Hammond said, looking him straight in the eye.

"So you're going to see if NASA is planning on sending up a shuttle soon and speed things up?" he asked, figuring that that was the only option left to them.

"Unfortunately the soonest we could send a shuttle up would be in four days and we don't have that sort of time." Hammond said, shaking his head in the negative. "According to the satellites the ship has moved to the dark side of the moon and could be preparing to leave. We also have reason to believe they may have made several trips to the surface."

"What?" he asked, looking quickly through the pictures until he spotted one that had what looked like a car shaped shuttle entering what looked to be a hanger on the underside of the ship.

"Do we have any idea where they went?" Carter asked, her inquisitive mind instantly looking for more information.

"Aside from it being somewhere in the United Kingdom every time, no," Hammond replied, turning to the knowledgeable captain. "I've already contacted a few sources over there to see if there's anything they can tell us but it could be a while. That's why the Tok'ra remain our best option for making contact with the vessel before it leaves."

"As long as they don't send Anise, I don't mind," he said, voicing the only real concern he had with the general's plan.

Just about everyone in the room grimaced at the image of the brunette scientist coming with the Tel'tak transport ship that'd likely be sent by the Tok'ra. No one had fond memories of the woman and it wasn't hard to figure out why when you took into account what had happened last two times she had contact with the SGC. First there was the incident with those freaky armbands that turned them into superheroes but gave out at the worst possible moment. The fact that the woman didn't seem to care so long as she got her 'data' definitely didn't earn her any points with his team or General Hammond. Then there was the whole mess with the snakehead sleeper agents and the little inquisition that was held with her running the Q&amp;A session. Not only did it expose him and Carter as skirting close to breaking certain fraternization rules but it also caused Sam to shoot a friend.

It went without saying that he was of the opinion that anytime Anise came a calling, they should expect something FUBAR to happen.

"See what you can do to trim some more time off of the repairs, Major," Hammond ordered in a no nonsense tone of voice. "As for you, Colonel, I want you to conduct what research you can on the Normandy. I'm not looking for a detailed blueprint but I'd prefer it if we had something to point us in the right direction."

"Well, that's the sort of research I can get behind," he said with some enthusiasm since it'd certainly be better than Daniel's dusty scrolls or Carter's technical manuals.

_Never thought I'd get paid for researching a videogame,_ he thought to himself with a bit of a grin. _About time the universe handed me a gimme._

With the orders given the meeting was over and they each went their separate ways to follow the orders they'd been given. As he walked down the corridor towards his office, he couldn't help but wonder what they'd find when they finally caught up with this new ship. Would they find anything like the 'Mass Effect' game he'd played before or would it be something else entirely?

One way or another, though, he doubted that it'd be a boring visit, that was for damn sure.

_**Captain's Cabin, Normandy SR-2, Evening, Xander 'Shepard' Harris' POV**_

_No matter what ANYONE says, it doesn't get any easier the second time around,_ he thought as he looked at the model ships hanging on the glass wall ahead of him.

Roughly twenty-four hours had passed since the Halloween spell had been cast a second time and everyone was riding out the after effects. However, given that the majority of the people on board had gone as humans, all they had to deal with was an extra set of memories as well as a few new mannerisms. It was those that had been dressed up as a member of an alien race that had the most collateral damage to deal with. Willow and Andrew were the only ones conscious but he had little doubt that when Dawn came to, she'd have a few things to say about the changes she'd undergone. For the time being both his best bud and the head of the Rome branch Watcher were coping but he believed that was mostly due to the fact that they were holding onto the hope that they'd be back to normal soon. Once they managed to figure out how to get down to the castle without setting off every single spy satellite in orbit, they'd search the stone structure from top to bottom until they found the location where the spell was cast. Once they found it, they'd research the hell out of it until they came up with a counter spell that would turn everything back to normal.

_I have a feeling I'm not going to get out of this without something sticking,_ he thought as he continued to gaze at things that shouldn't exist.

Indeed, if everything occurred as it did all those years ago back in Sunnydale, he might physically be able to get back to normal but the memories… the memories he'd probably be stuck with until the day he died. Most would think that he was no worse off than the rest of them, but they'd be wrong. While the others had only one additional set of memories to deal with, he had three sets to reflect the different histories that the player could pick for their custom Commander Shepard. In one set of memories his parents had been Alliance military and he'd spent most of his life on ships or space stations as his family transferred from assignment to assignment. He 'remembered' enlisting with the Alliance as soon as he reached recruitment age and quickly rose up the ranks, with everything being normal until the day his unit was dispatched to the planet Akuze to investigate a sudden communications blackout. He shuddered as the memories from that mission flitted through his mind before he consciously suppressed them in order to keep his mind from stalling. After that… mission, he was approached to join the N7 program in recognition for surviving and he'd taken it if for no other reason than to prepare just in case it ever happened again. From there things pretty much went the way of the game, with his choices and actions mirroring what he really would've done in those situations. This was the same for the other two memory sets: Earthborn with war hero and colonist with ruthless.

Thus with three times the amount of additional memories, along with the soldier memories he still retained from the first time he'd been hit with the spell, his mind felt quite crowded.

_At least I haven't forgotten who I really am,_ he thought thanking all the deities for small favors. _Still, the sooner this all gets reversed, the sooner I can stop worrying about developing a case of SPD._

"Commander Shepard," came EDI's synthesized voice before the glowing sphere that was her visual manifestation popped up on its projector tablet.

"You do know that I'm not really your Commander Shepard, right, EDI?" he asked, looking lazily over at the artificial intelligence. "I know you've probably either been eavesdropping enough to put together the truth or asked someone already."

"I have been fully apprised of the situation by Miss Rosenberg while she worked on the shuttle," EDI replied with possibly imagined professionalism in her voice. "However all of the files in my database state that you are Commander Alexander Shepard, commanding officer of the Normandy SR-2. While I realize that this information was likely input into my systems as a result of the 'spell' that is responsible for our current situation, I see no reason to deviate from standard operations."

_In other words she doesn't really believe in magic and is waiting for the rest of us to accept that we are who she thinks we are._

"Suit yourself. So, what did you want to tell me?" he asked, figuring that he might as well find out why she popped up in his room.

"I wanted to inform you that Dawn Summers is showing signs of regaining consciousness," EDI replied promptly. "She should be awake within the next two point three minutes."

He didn't even bother with the comical 'WHAT' that normally would've spilled out of his mouth at that information. Instead the new Shepard parts that had taken up residence in his brain had instantly gone into action mode and had him in the elevator descending to deck three. Quickly exiting, he moved immediately for the infirmary, barely even noticing when it's doors automatically opened to allow him entry. What had his attention was the sluggishly moving form of Dawn, confirming that a little over two minutes had passed since EDI had given him the notification.

"Easy, Dawn," he said as he helped her up into a sitting position. "You've been through quite a bit. Just take deep breaths 'til you get your bearings back."

Seeing the now blue skinned girl following his advice, he decided to wait and let her get the next word in since he figured that she probably had quite a few questions she wanted answered.

"What… what happened?" Dawn asked, sounding like she was still a little disoriented.

"Short version: someone pulled another Halloween spell on us and it looks like we've been hit with one helluva bill." he replied, deciding to let her decide if she wanted more details.

"What do you…" Dawn began to ask but then began looking at her decidedly blue skin tone. "What the HELL!?"

"Yeah… that's kinda what I meant by 'a helluva bill'," he said a little uncertain about how to phrase things. "It looks like you, Willow and Andrew got the full genetic makeover when you were changed into your characters rather than the cosmetic job the rest of us got. We're going to fix it, though! We're just looking for a way to get back to the castle without getting spotted by every spy satellite looking in our direction."

"Spy satellite?" she asked before getting a better look at her surroundings. "We're on the Normandy?"

_Looks like she got the memory download as well._ "Yep. The SR-2 version, not the SR-1 model. By the time the spell broke we were all already up here. I have everyone busy with ship maintenance or working on modifying the Kodiak shuttle with stealth tech so we can get back to the castle."

This caused her to turn her head back in his direction and that was when she spotted the main thing everyone else seemed to pick up on and that was his regrown eye. He didn't quite know why the spell grew it back but he figured it just meant that Janus or whoever had been in the driver's seat of the spell wanted them all to match their characters as much as possible. So goodbye pirate and hello space soldier! He didn't know what'd happen when Giles and the others cast their counter spell but he'd be very grateful if he could keep the new eye, mostly because he was fairly sure it'd be as painful to lose it again as it was to get it back.

_Why is she looking at me like that?_ he thought when he noticed Dawn staring at him a bit longer than he figured a new eye warranted.

"You okay?" he asked, waving a hand in front of her eyes to snap her out of it.

"Oh! Yes… I was just… distracted by some of the memories I have knocking around my skull now," Dawn replied after snapping out of whatever contemplation she'd been experiencing. "Does Willow have any idea when the shuttle might be ready?"

"Last time I checked with her, she basically told me to stop bothering her and let her work," he replied with a bit of a grimace, remembering how THAT conversation went. "Believe it or not I think that means she's making progress and probably wants us to butt out and let her work. EDI? How's she doing now?"

"I cannot say with one hundred percent certainty, commander, but I believe she has determined what she needs to do in order to modify the shuttle." EDI replied from the speakers in the room. "I am uncertain as to how extensive they will be or how long it will take to complete the modifications."

"See! Willow knows what to do and knowing is half the battle!" he said, trying to sound encouraging while praying that she didn't pick up on his accidental G.I. Joe reference.

The roll of her eyes told him she'd indeed caught the reference but the grin told him she knew what his objective had been and appreciated the thought.

"Well, if we're going to be heading back to Earth soon, I guess I'd better take a look around the ship while I can," Dawn said as she got off the bio-bed. "After all, if Willow and Giles manage to fix everything, an hour later it'll likely be gone."

With that the currently blue-skinned Summers girl walked out of the room, leaving him to suppress the one thing that he'd felt from the moment he'd first seen Dawn's new look.

In two of the three sets of memories he had, Commander Shepard had been romantically involved with Liara and thus had those memories provoked similar emotions when he'd seen Dawn.

_**Normandy SR-2, Deck Two, Cockpit, Oz's POV**_

This was different. Different yet oddly fulfilling.

He'd felt drawn to the cockpit from the moment the spell had broken and, once he'd sat down in the pilot's seat, he experienced a feeling akin to once more holding his favorite guitar or playing his favorite song.

It was both familiar and comforting.

That was why when Xander had asked them to go over the ship and make sure everything was running like it should he'd gone to the cockpit since his new skill set was identical to Jeff Moreau's. Since then he'd been going over everything Jeff knew about being a pilot as well as the various benefits of tweaking the settings of the ship in order to make it fly the best it possibly could. EDI had talked to him a few times about the inadvisability of tweaking this or that but, strangely enough, she just added to the familiarity of the ship. It was… odd… working with the memories of a different person in his mind but at the same time it answered a 'what if' scenario he'd occasionally thought about since high school. Being about as smart as Willow, he'd known the sort of jobs he'd be interested in if he could work up the motivation for them rather than being content with his musician style life. One day becoming an astronaut had been one of his possibilities and it looked like some higher being was listening because here he was, even if it'd probably gone in a week or two.

_At least Fido's gone, _he thought as he considered what was probably a side-effect of the spell.

That was something he'd noticed the second he'd regained control of his body but he'd kept it to himself just in case Fido came back for a repeat performance. However it'd been hours since he'd noticed the absence of the werewolf in his mind and he had no reason to believe that it'd be changing anytime soon. Somehow the spell that had turned him into Jeff 'Joker' Moreau had rid him of his lycanthropy and, with the spell broken, it was unlikely that he'd have a relapse once the counter spell was cast.

That didn't mean that he didn't have something to be concerned with still both now and perhaps after the counter spell was cast.

He'd only checked it out himself using the omni-tool but it looked like he'd inherited Joker's condition of Vrolik syndrome, aka Brittle Bone disease. It wasn't a perfect match with Jeff's and looked to be more like a watered down version of the condition, but it still meant that if he wasn't careful activities that he used to partake in could result in broken bones. It wouldn't be as debilitating for him as it was for Joker but it still meant he'd have to think before he acted and any kind of rough housing would be completely off the table. Honestly he couldn't tell whether or not he'd traded up or down with what happened but he decided he wouldn't let it change his life. He could still run the school with Nina even if he wasn't a werewolf any longer because, while being afflicted with lycanthropy did help, it wasn't a prerequisite for the position.

"Daniel, I am detecting a small craft entering the system," EDI said, bringing him out of his thoughts and into the real world. "It is of an unfamiliar hull configuration and is apparently capable of hyperspace jumps."

"Huh," he said as he brought up the sensor data on one of his holographic displays. "What's their destination?"

"The ship appears to be on course for Earth," EDI replied as the partially cone-shaped spaceship appeared on the display. "According to my calculations it appears to be on course for the Colorado Springs area."

Deciding that he wouldn't be alone in his desire to remain hidden from sight, he engaged the stealth systems in an effort to remain hidden from the newly arrived vessel. Those systems would keep any heat from escaping the ship while also making the outer hull as cold as the depths of space were. Add that to the fact that the hull was specifically designed to make it harder for other means of detection from working and they'd be all but invisible to the unknown ship.

Unless they had windows and happened to be close enough to be spotted with the naked eye.

_Better to be careful,_ he thought as he began to pilot the Normandy so as to put the moon between them and the new arrival.

It'd be tough to find a spot that'd keep them hidden from both the Earth and the unknown ship but Moreau's piloting skills proved to be up to the task. Once he reached what he felt was the best possible location, he waited to see if he'd acted swiftly enough or if the Normandy had been spotted. He seriously hoped it was the former because Joker's memories let him know all too well what happened when unknown ships came after the Normandy.

_Not going to happen._

With some anticipation he watched the new arrival as it flew through space towards Earth and looked for any sign that the Normandy had been detected. Minutes ticked by but there was no alteration in the craft's flight path and, once it reached the halfway mark between the moon and Earth, he concluded that they had indeed evaded notice for the time being.

"Any transmissions?" he asked EDI as he closed the holo-display.

"According to my sensors there were no transmissions of any kind coming from or going to the unknown vessel." EDI replied after two seconds. "It would appear as though we've eluded them."

"Yeah. Keep an eye out, though," he said, agreeing with her assessment but deciding to remain cautious just the same.

"Of course, Daniel," EDI replied in her usual objective manner.

With that matter settled he wondered about whether or not to let the others know about this development. While it was no small thing for an alien ship to be heading to Earth, the Organization dealt strictly with the supernatural and that hadn't changed even though they now had resources that could be used to deal with aliens. A few weeks from now at most they'd be back to their old selves, returning to their usual daily routines. While he didn't have a great deal of confidence in the militaries of the world and their ability to properly deal with contact involving aliens, he didn't know who else to leave the matter to.

In any case, he had no reason to think on it further since he doubted that such a small ship could do all that much damage before one country or another shoved a nuke up its butt.

_Then again… _he thought as he considered the possibility of something bigger following its 'kid' into the system.

It was pretty much universal in most sci-fi films involving outer space that small craft like the one that just flew by were almost always attached to a larger mother ship. Even the memories he got from Joker indicated that for something as small as the unknown craft, the odds were better that fifty-fifty that there was a larger ship it could dock with or enter a distress call away. If that turned out to be the case then it would be prudent to make sure all of the Normandy's systems were ready for a fight since it wouldn't do to have something fail in such a serious situation. Reaching out to the right holo-display, he opened a connection to engineering and waited for someone to answer.

"Aye, what can I doo for ya, Oz?" came the familiar voice of Miles Scott from engineering.

"Repairs going good?" he asked, hoping that repairs were proceeding nicely.

"Oh, aye!" Miles said with optimism. "There wasn't anything seriously wrong with th' ship when we got here. Just a wee bit of damage here an there that needed tending to. The Normandy should be in top form by tomorrow. Why?"

"We have a visitor in the system. Non-terrestrial," he replied, keeping his response short and to the point. "Just want to be ready in case his big bro comes calling."

"Understood. Linda an' I'll focus on gettin' the combat systems workin' perfectly first," Miles said, instantly taking on a more professional tone.

"Good. Oz out," he said before severing the connection with engineering.

He hoped that he was being needlessly cautious, that he was making more of the situation than what was really there, but if Jeff's memories taught him anything it was how a routine day can suddenly become something else entirely.

That was something he knew to be all too true.

_**Peterson Air Force Base, Hanger Three, A Short While Later**_

_**Major Samantha Carter's POV**_

"Look at it this way, sir," she said as she watched the Tok'ra Tel'Tak decloak. "Maybe that ship's already left the system. If that's the case then you won't have to put up with Anise for more than a few hours before she'll leave."

Personally she was hoping that that wasn't the case because, like every technological discovery made by the SGC, she wanted nothing more than to examine it and figure out how it worked. Feeding her intellectual hunger took precedent over just about everything, save for situations where the mission took priority over her own curiosity. So the chance to examine an unknown spaceship, the tech aboard it and be able to ask the crew questions about their civilization was a very attractive opportunity. She'd looked over what little information Jack had been able to find online about the Normandy and how it worked but, as usual, there was nothing too deep. Just like with most fictional ships or pieces of technology, the writers only put in the bare minimum details needed for it to pass the inspection of your average civilian. Still, it gave her something to work with and she had to admit that if they could incorporate technology like this into the SGC, it'd give them a decided leap forward in their ability to fight the Goa'uld.

"As tempting as that might be to believe, I know you better than that," O'Neill said, half turning towards her and grinning. "You'd be in a funk for a week if this turned out to be a waste of time. Since we can't have that, I think I can… tolerate Anise long enough for you to enjoy first contact with the Normandy."

She had to roll her eyes a bit at that since she knew that no matter how much Jack might dislike visits from the Tok'ra and Anise in particular, he'd do his best to remain professional.

Mostly professional, anyway, but that was normal for him.

The transport landed a minute later and, as the doors opened, the person who'd contacted them the moment the craft began its descent stepped out in her old, grey leather halter top and pants both of which clung tightly to her frame. While she knew that there were dozens of civilizations and numerous different styles of dress out in the galaxy, she mentally shook her head at the woman's deviation from the standard uniform of the Tok'ra. She 'supposed' that the reason for the different appearance was to maximize her host body's natural beauty in the hope that the enemy wouldn't think there was a scientific brain in her skull but that might've been a little too optimistic. Whatever the woman's reasons, she personally hoped that she didn't do anything to jeopardize the mission like, say, disregard the rights and privacy of their new alien visitors to satisfy her own curiosity.

Two other Tok'ra followed Anise out of the ship wearing the standard uniform their allies usually wore, a man and a woman, with zats holstered at their sides.

"The SGC appreciates that the Tok'ra were able to spare a ship to help us with this new development," General Hammond said, taking control of the conversation before Jack could.

"Given the information that you were able to provide us with from your modified satellites, the high council decided that the potential gain justified the dispatching of myself and a Tel'tak." Anise said with a voice that clearly indicated that the symbiote was in control at the moment. "After reviewing these scans myself, I agreed."

"Well that makes everything just peachy then, doesn't it?" Jack mumbled just loudly enough for those closest to him to make out what he was saying.

A stern glare from the General reminded Colonel O'Neill to keep such comments to himself in the future.

"Good. SG-1 will be accompanying you with this first contact mission," Hammond said, turning back to Anise to give her the basic briefing. "As we agreed when you made contact earlier, SG-1 will represent Earth and you will represent the Tok'ra in this mission. If the ship has a crew on board, establishing friendly relations with them takes top priority. If it isn't manned, which while unlikely could still be possible, establishing control will be the objective. Naturally anything discovered or gained will be shared between both parties."

"Of course. The Tok'ra values its alliance with the Tauri and would share anything of value gained from this mission," Anise said in a polite yet somewhat aloof tone. "We should leave soon before the ship chooses to leave the system."

"Well then let's get a move on!" O'Neill said before heading for the open hatch of the Tel'tak. "We don't want to keep our new 'friends' waiting."

It didn't take them more than a minute to get all on board and from there the cloak was re-initialized before the ship ascended into the air. Knowing that it'd be ten minutes or more before they caught up with the alien ship, she figured it'd probably be a good idea to find something to distract Jack with before he found his own source of amusement, namely to start talking to and annoying the Tok'ra.

"So what do you think we'll find when we get to the ship?" she asked, sitting down next to the Colonel.

"Well, considering they were taking trips down to Earth and then went to the moon, I think it's a safe bet that there're people on board." Jack replied casually as he leaned against the wall to rest a bit. "They'll probably be human and hopefully they'll speak English."

"Why do you say that?" Daniel asked, reading one of the books he'd brought with him in case some translating needed to be done.

"Well, for one thing both of the companies behind the game are located in countries that mostly just speak English and because I'd rather not spend a couple of hours playing charades trying to communicate with the people on the Normandy," O'Neill replied, once again showing that unlike her or Daniel he had no interest in the required trials of first contact with a very different people.

Both she and the linguist half rolled their eyes at but neither were all that surprised by their C.O's words.

Ever since SG-1 had first formed, Colonel Jack O'Neill had never been one for the academic side of the SGCs mission statement and tended to complain a bit whenever they got assigned such a mission. Not that she could blame him really since she wasn't all that crazy when their missions involved lots of danger, lots of shoot outs with very few rational discussions in between. She might be a Major in the US Air Force and thus trained to fight but she preferred to exercise her mind rather than her muscles on a mission. She imagined Daniel was the same way, minus the training for combat, so it was no surprise that he got a little annoyed when Jack failed to understand how interesting and thought provoking some of their missions were or could be.

"Plus, when you think about it, I think we're due for someone who speaks English." Jack said, continuing with his reply. "I mean, we've met people who've spoken just about every other language, so why not English this time."

She couldn't argue with him there.

One of the first things that they'd had to deal with since the SGC got started was arriving on a planet where the locals didn't speak English. She and some of the other scientists employed by the SGC had early on managed to put together a real-time translation device that would tell them what the locals were saying but every once and a while Daniel needed to act as a translator. After all, despite all the new technology that they'd gained since their first mission, they were still limited by their own knowledge and creating something that could translate EVERY language was just a little out of reach. So if the people aboard the Normandy wound up speaking English this time around rather than some language the translator couldn't handle, she was okay with that.

"We are approaching the ship's location," Anise announced from the front of the ship. "It appears to have a fairly advanced stealth system but our sensors are able to detect it just the same."

A bit surprised at how quickly they'd arrived at the moon, she got up from the floor and proceeded to the cockpit, a bit eager to see the Normandy with her own eyes rather than just as a photo.

Looking out the window she spotted the ship instantly with its white and black color scheme and watched as it got closer. It was so different seeing it in person and already her scientific mind was analyzing everything she could see from its overall shape to the engine configuration. It definitely looked right and it made her want to take notes to send ahead to the people working on the X-303 if they ever decided to build a more streamlined ship.

_Something tells me this is going to be interesting,_ she thought as she watched one of the Tok'ra agents press the button to deactivate the cloak.

_**Aboard the Normandy SR-2, Faith's POV**_

"It looks like whoever they are, the Normandy's stealth systems aren't enough to keep us hidden," she said with some irritation that was half directed at herself while the rest was sent to Oz. "Assuming that the systems were engaged immediately after the unknown ship's arrival, that would mean their sensors are different from anything our ship's designed to handle or they're just plain better."

"I pressed the button the second it showed up," Oz said with mild defensiveness. "Considering they can turn their ship invisible, I think they've got better tech."

"I'm sure you did everything by the book, Oz," X said, showing his confidence in the pilot's skills.

The truth of the matter was that she did as well but every since she'd gotten control of her body back it'd been like she'd been stuck wearing the itchiest wool bodysuit EVER. Nothing felt right! Not only that but Miranda Lawson, the witch who'd taken control of her, had been a stone cold bitch who talked like some high and mighty sluts she'd have taken pleasure in scaring shitless a few years back. The fact that if she didn't watch herself she'd act the same way pissed her off, especially how she occasionally started talking like some stuck up Auzzie chick. She'd tried to distract herself by following Xan's orders about patching the ship back together but the former Cerberus agent's thoughts and memories were always there in the background. It'd made her irritable, leading to a few sharp words being sent at the others, but no biotic flare ups at least. Like just about everyone else she wanted to get everything back to the way it was so she could feel comfortable in her own skin and her own mind again. Once Red got the shuttle modified she'd be on the first run down so she could find the person who'd made the mess they were in and make her opinion known.

Violently if she was in the mood for it and that was becoming a strong possibility.

She knew the rumors going around the ship that the culprit was Posey and, if that was true, then she was going to show the bookworm what having experience could do for a Slayer.

It'd been a couple of minutes ago when she was talking to X next to the galaxy map in the C&amp;C that Oz had let them know that the ship that'd popped into Earth space was back and heading their way. All of the senior Scoobies who'd been in the same area had gone to the cockpit to get a look for themselves but then the Flight Lieutenant said he'd lost it after it'd left the planet's gravitational pull. EDI had confirmed that the small ship was undetectable by the Normandy's sensors and, since it couldn't have just vanished, everyone had assumed it'd just gone invisible or engaged its FTL drive. B was betting on the former since, in Kasumi Goto's experience, no ship could engage its hyperdrive without some sort of visible and obvious clues. Xander had ordered continual scans of the system for the next four hours looking for any sign of the alien spacecraft.

As of fifteen seconds ago, that wasn't necessary anymore.

"Close the cockpit windows now," Xander ordered in a 'no nonsense' tone. "I don't want them getting a good look at our faces."

"Closing the emergency bulkheads now," Oz said, thick metal plates slid over the cockpit's windows before locking into place.

"Feelin' shy, Xander?" Buffy asked in a playful way from beneath her hood.

Mentally she smiled as she remembered that she wasn't the only person who was uncomfortable with the changes made to body and mind. It'd started out with the oldest Slayer glancing in Robin's direction every once and a while before nervously looking away but it turned out when it wasn't the looking, it was the unconscious pocketing of anything shiny or valuable. Sometimes it was just a tool that B had been using to fix something but other times it was as she passed by someone's table in the mess hall. Usually once her Slaying sister realized what'd happened she immediately put whatever she'd taken back where it was supposed to be but some things had been harder than others to let go. It was clear to her that the California Girl had developed a case of the klepto from Kasumi and possibly a crush on Robin. Not that she particularly cared since she'd stolen a few things in her time but it was comforting to know that she wasn't the only one with baggage.

"They're unknowns and there's a good chance they've got connections planet side corporate or government," X replied, not losing his soldier 'tude. "If they've got cameras on that thing, I'd prefer they didn't get anything to run through facial recognition software."

"Why not? We have deals with just about every major power on the planet, don't we?" Buffy asked, not really all that concerned about being made.

"Deals that are about handling demons and magic only," Xan pointed out, showing where his thoughts were. "Aliens and advanced space faring frigates aren't covered in any of the deals they agreed to and they know it. They'll want it, be ready to fight over it and might not be happy when G-man and Wills make it go poof with the counter spell."

Faith couldn't fault Boy Toy's logic.

Before all this mess happened, she'd trusted the suits about as far as she could throw G's car one handed and now with Miranda's echo in her head, she trusted them even less. Back in the Mass Effect 'verse, the genetically gifted girl had the backing of a black ops organization like Cerberus to make sure deals weren't 'renegotiated' by the other side. Here in this reality, the Slayer Organization was still pretty new and didn't have the weight to throw around that Travers and his bunch of pricks had. That meant that the odds of being stabbed in the back if a big enough carrot was dangled in front of the politicos faces were pretty good.

_So the longer they're kept from connecting the dots the better._

"Shepard? We are receiving a signal from the alien spacecraft." EDI said as a button began to flash on Oz's holo-controls.

"Put it on speaker," Xander ordered and a moment later everyone could hear the transmission.

"This is Colonel O'Neill of Stargate Command to Normandy." Came a man's voice over the cockpit speakers. "You have entered Earth space. Please respond and state your intentions."

It sounded like the guy on the other end, this Colonel O'Neill, was chafing a bit at having to speak so formally so he couldn't be all bad. Still, it could just mean the guy was a xenophobic asshole who just wanted to blow them into so many zero G chunks but wasn't due to orders from above his pay grade. Either way the decision to respond was up to the commander since everyone on board decided to defer to X, even though G-man outranked him in the Organization.

Everyone looked to Xan and they could see just by the expression on his face that he was weighing the pros and cons of talking to the unknown people.

"Open a channel, Oz. EDI, distort my voice so they can't do a search on it." Xander ordered, looking at the pilot then the glowing ball that was the ship's A.I.

"Channel open and distortion program in place." EDI said a few seconds later with Flight Lieutenant Osborne nodding in confirmation.

"This is the commander of the Normandy. Our entry into Earth space was unintentional and we come in peace," X said firmly and professionally. "We are in the middle of repairs and will depart when they're done."

_Good move, Xan,_ she thought with her Miranda half in agreement. _Give them what they asked for and nothing but._

"As second in command of Stargate Command, I would like to offer any assistance possible with those repairs and request a meeting in person to discuss possible relations." Colonel O'Neill said a moment later, definitely sounding like he didn't like talking in such a stuffy manner.

Seconds ticked by as Xander considered the other man's words but that didn't stop people from being a little surprised by what he did next herself included.

"Bring your ship next to the portside airlock and be prepared to undergo decontamination protocols before entry. Normandy out." Xander said before giving the universal gesture to cut transmission.

"What are you doing?!" Buffy asked in surprise sounding like she wouldn't wait for an explanation. "I thought you didn't want them getting a good look at us!"

"They know we're here and they wanted to open 'relations' with us. They aren't going to leave us alone just because we tell them to get lost," X replied as he moved towards the armory of the ship. "They'll monitor this ship twenty-four seven and that'll make getting dirt-side all the harder, even with Willow's modifications to the shuttle. If we give in a little now they might be willing to do the same and we can use that to fix this mess."

"And the little problem about our identities?" she asked with some of Miranda's Australian accent seeping in.

"Why do you think I'm going to the armory to get my hard suit?" Xan asked rhetorically, not stopping. "I figure if I get my helmet on they'll only see my eyes and that'll keep me safe. If you guys plan on sticking around, I'd recommend you do the same. That reminds me…ANYONE NOT WILLING TO GET INTO A FULL HARD SUIT, GET OFF THIS LEVEL **NOW!**"

Not exactly the gentle way to get things done but it got the bridge crew off their butts and to the elevator that'd take them to the lower levels. Deciding she didn't want to leave X by his lonesome facing the military, she followed his lead when they got to the armory and slipped into a standard Cerberus hard suit, complete with concealing helmet. It wasn't the usual thing Miranda wore but the stuff she put on didn't cover what needed to be covered so she'd make due with the grunt gear for the time being.

"If it's all the same to the rest of you, I'll just do this." B tapped a few buttons on her omni-tool before a bit of electric current danced across her clothes and she disappeared from sight.

"Wicked! Wouldn't mind getting hooked up with something like that." she said, imagining all the uses of being able to turn invisible.

"EDI? Monitor what happens and make sure that any console our guests get too close to is either locked down or the script is changed to Asari or Turian," Xander ordered as he locked his helmet into place. "I want as much control over what they see, hear or do as possible while they're on board."

"Acknowledged, Shepard," EDI said from the speakers in the room.

Once she finished suiting up and snapping the helmet into place, they made their way to the port side docking bay near the cockpit. Oz had apparently chosen to throw up a kinetic barrier to cut off his work space from the rest of the ship and, though she could only fuzzily see him, she could tell he'd put a helmet on his head. X approved of this as he took up a ready position by the hatch and as they felt the light shudder of the alien spacecraft docking with the Normandy she prepared herself.

"Here's hoping the shit doesn't hit the fan," she muttered even as she kept her hand near the pistol at her hip that she'd grabbed from the armory.

Just in case.

_**Aboard the Tok'ra Tel'tak, Doctor Daniel Jackson's POV**_

Waiting for the connection between the two ships to be secure, he let his mind wander to what they might find when they met the crew of the Normandy.

He knew that Sam was interested in learning as much as she could about the technology their visitors had to offer and knew that the Major would not appreciate any actions that could potentially rob her of the opportunity. Jack being Jack would probably be happy with more practical military gains if they were successful in establishing a relationship with these formerly fictional people. While sometimes disappointed in his friend's overlooking of the more academic and peaceful benefits to be had when encountering a new species, he knew the Colonel couldn't help how he was trained. As for Teal'c… well, he knew that any additional help to combat the Goa'uld would be looked upon favorably by the former First Prime of Apophis.

In his case, however, he hoped to get a chance to look at the cultural and linguistic information the Normandy likely had on board. Like the rest of SG1, he'd looked over what research material Jack had been able to dig up online and had even looked on the internet a bit himself but there was not enough depth to satisfy his curiosity there. There was more information than most video games had for the fictional races they used but, for someone who'd spent years learning how to identify and understand lost cultures, what O'Neill had found must only scratch the surface of the knowledge to be had. He wasn't completely averse to the possible benefits of a military alliance with the Normandy since he wanted the Goa'uld defeated as much as the next person.

He just didn't think that they should overlook the potential for cultural exchange in their quest for weapons and technology.

When the yellow lit symbol next to the docking hatch turned green, one of the Tok'ra pressed it, opening the hatch and before anyone could stop her, Anise took the lead, entering it. Jack wasn't far behind but he had an annoyed look on his face that made it clear that the woman had irritated him with her taking of the lead position. Deciding that proximity would be best to keep SG1's leader from doing anything rash, he walked quickly to catch up, hoping the colonel didn't let his dislike of Anise influence how he carried out the current mission.

"Alert. Decontamination in progress," an artificial voice said as a curtain of white light passed back and forth over them. "Decontamination is required for all persons boarding."

"They could've just asked," Jack commented casually as they waited for the process to finish. "I took a shower this morning and made sure to scrub in all the right places."

He half rolled his eyes at this but approved of Jack's efforts to ease his irritation with humor.

"I think they're probably more concerned with harmful bacteria, substances and viruses, Colonel," Carter pointed out as she examined the visible technology around them. "The energy field they're using is probably a wavelength of radiation specifically calibrated to eliminate such hazards before letting anyone on board."

He could tell that Sam was already considering the various ways they could add the technology to the X-303 prototype discussed at the meeting two weeks ago. It'd probably take quite a bit to come up with something on their own but, if these talks went well, they might at least get an explanation for how the Normandy's version worked so Sam wouldn't be working completely from scratch.

"Decontamination complete," the digitized voice declared before the hatch in front of them opened to reveal the interior of the ship.

The first thing that caught his attention were the two people waiting for them and there was two reasons for this. First they were humanoid and, while not unexpected, there had been the off chance that the commander who'd replied to their attempt at communication would be an alien. The second was the body armor that both the man and the woman wore due to the sheer difference to anything he had encountered before. Seemingly comprised of several individual pieces, it looked to him to be a combination of military body armor and some of the more medieval armor he'd seen in museums. Whatever the aesthetics of the design, it looked strong and, if the research material Jack had found turned out to be accurate, both of the suits of body armor would be equipped with a kinetic barrier among other features.

"Step forward and prepare for weapon scan," the man to the right said as some sort of holographic device appeared around his right arm.

"Um… you must not have good eyesight, 'cause they're right here," Jack said, shaking his P-90 to draw attention to it.

"Weapons NOT on display," the man said as a golden light similar to the one in the decontamination process swept over the entire group. "Besides, those antiques you're carrying barely qualify as dangerous. Bet they wouldn't even give my barriers even a light workout."

_Oooohh… not good!_

All of SG1 knew that, while not always serious, Jack didn't take well to being disrespected especially by people he didn't know. True, that didn't stop O'Neill from coming to his own conclusions about some of the races and people they met but he always made an effort to get along right up until someone did something to lose credit with him. Hopefully the Colonel would make an extra special effort here because he didn't like the possible outcomes if the leader of SG1 chose to tell the man in front of him how he REALLY felt.

"Probably not, but I got some bigger toys back home that just might scratch up that armor of yours." O'Neill said in a way that sounded like he wanted to invite the guy over for a barbeque.

"I'll bet," the man said before the scan ended and the holographic interface on his arm disappeared. "You're good. Follow me and we'll continue this in the meeting room."

With that the man obviously in charge of the ship led them down the walkway to the rear of the command and control section of the spacecraft. Looking at it, all he could easily see similarities with the images from the videogame and the area around him but no manner of computer generated images could match the real thing. Holographic interfaces, what could be a map of the galaxy at the center of the room and what looked like an alien language displayed on both had his mind going a mile a minute trying to decipher it all. Peripherally he knew Sam was nudging him along and making sure he didn't bump into anything but, when they entered a room to the left of the main elevator, he knew he'd have to do the same for Carter now. What he could see was a fairly impressive looking science lab with just about everything a person would need in order to analyze samples from alien worlds. The Major was a little bit harder to tear away from the lab than he'd been the holographic displays in the C&amp;C but eventually they all made it to the meeting room.

It was a bare room with a rectangular conference table in the center easily big enough for twelve or more people to stand around it without feeling crowded. He was a bit surprised that there weren't any seats but, if he was right, the Normandy was a military ship so any comforts or unnecessary furniture was probably not included when they left a space dock.

"Alright, you said you wanted to open relations but I don't know how useful that's going to be to us," the man said, taking a position at the end of the table. "All I'm interested in at the moment is getting me and my crew back to the same time and place we got yanked from. If you can't do that then I don't see how working with you is going to benefit me."

"Do you know anything about how you were brought here, Commander?" Anise, or rather the host Freya, asked politely with a moderate bit of interest.

"Not really. We were on our way back through the Omega 4 relay when our space-time corridor destabilized in a big way. Next thing I knew we were getting tossed around like popcorn and I got knocked out. When we all woke up sensors and communications were down but, looking out the window, we found ourselves in orbit around Earth. It just wasn't our Earth."

"Is that why you took a shuttle down to the planet? To take a look around?" Carter asked quickly, having connected the dots of what they knew.

"Yes," the Commander replied a little guardedly, indicating he hadn't known that the trips had been spotted. "Didn't take long to notice buildings that should've been there weren't and things that shouldn't have been there were. Had a science team take a few samples to try and get an idea of what'd happened but then your ship showed up and we had to put analyzing things on the back shelf."

That made sense. An unknown spacecraft entering the solar system that didn't match anything the Normandy's computer's had on file would be enough for a military craft to put science on the back burner for awhile.

"While the Tok'ra's resources are limited, Commander, we would be willing to devote some of them to locating a way for you to return home. There are many remnants of an technologically advanced race known as the Ancients scattered throughout the region, as well as depositories of their knowledge," Freya said showing, subtle signs that she was repeating what Anise was telling her. "I am confident that a solution to your dilemma could be found eventually."

"Awful generous of you. What would you want in return?" the Commander asked tentatively, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"Your aid in fighting a cabal of tyrants known as the Goa'uld System Lords." Freya said, doing her best to make the Goa'uld sound foul yet powerful. "Hundreds of systems populated by millions of people are enslaved by them and forced to worship them as gods. They—"

Anything further was interrupted as a glowing blue ball appeared above a plate of black plastic at the far end of the table.

"Commander we have two new contacts on the outskirts of the system," the artificial voice from earlier reported. "They are fifty times bigger than the ship currently docked with the Normandy and are approaching Earth at one quarter the speed of light."

"Show me," the Commander ordered before a holographic projection appeared over the conference table showing the two new arrivals.

"Goa'uld mother ships." Carter said concern slammed into her words with precision.

"Have they detected us yet?" the Commander asked with a tone that was all business.

"They have shown no signs of changing course and I detect no sensor sweeps focused at our location," the artificial voice replied after a moment's pause. "However I should point out that if the sensors on the two ships are as advanced as the ones on the ship docked with the Normandy, I would be unable to detect them."

"Can you tell me who these ships belong to?" The Commander asked looking at Freya.

"Without seeing any identifying markings on the ships it would be impossible to tell which System Lord they served," Freya replied, glancing away from the holographic images. "However it is a certainty that they do not have benign intentions for Earth Commander."

"I'll need more than that before I commit this ship to the Earth's defense." The Commander activated a holographic interface in front of him. "EDI? Scan the surface of the ships. Look for any identifiable markings on the hull. Anything that seems to be important."

It was about a minute later before what he suspected was an artificial intelligence completed the scan and changed the hovering images from ships to a set of Goa'uld symbols.

"The ships belong to a minor System Lord known as Zeus," he said, identifying the symbols and remembering what he'd heard in past briefings on the Goa'uld hierarchy. "Cronus' son, just like in Greek mythology, but not all that powerful from what I've heard."

"Indeed, Doctor Jackson," Anise said with her distorted voice showing that she'd taken control of Freya's body. "Zeus attempted to usurp his father Cronus over two thousand years ago, at which point much of his military power was destroyed or severely limited. At last report he was making moderate progress in regaining his father's favor but that would not explain his actions here."

"I think I know why he's here," Carter said, sounding like the facts were coming together in her head. "I think the dimensional displacement that brought the Normandy here is connected to the energy surge that hit the Stargate yesterday. That energy triggered the dialing process and then went through the gate to the other side. If the planet it went to was in Zeus' territory, then he might've been able to track it back to Earth. He might think this is the source of the energy and assume it's some sort of weapon or device that could give him another chance to defeat his father."

"And when he doesn't find it or decides the Normandy is the weapon?" the Commander asked, sounding like he already had an idea of what'd happen.

"Zeus will search for the source of the energies Major Carter referred to and, if he cannot find it, he will find something of value in order to justify his violation of the Protected Planets treaty." Anise replied promptly, sounding certain in her words. "That will likely mean he will attempt to capture the Normandy, destroy it if he cannot capture it, or attempt to eliminate Stargate Command."

"But that would spark retaliation from the Asgard for certain!" Sam exclaimed at the idea of an attack on the SGC.

"You must understand, Major Carter, that Zeus has taken a great risk just entering this system," Anise said, showing only the smallest amount of sympathy for the situation facing Earth. "Not only with regards to the Protected Planet's Treaty but also, I suspect, in acting without Cronus' permission. If he does not gain something to offset the potential cost of his actions, he will face dire repercussions indeed."

"And if there's one thing Snake Heads care about more than anything, it's saving their own skin, even if it means burning off everyone else's." O'Neill said, sounding like he wanted to walk up to Zeus and kick his ass.

"Great!" the Commander growled as though his main plan had gone down the tubes. "I suggest you get back to your ship and detach. If I'm going to be taking the Normandy into a fight, I can't do it with a ship attached to the side of it."

"My fellow Tok'ra will see to that, Commander," Anise said officially before looking at the two who'd come with her in the Tel'tak. "I will remain here to provide whatever aid I can in dealing with Zeus."

Immediately the two Tok'ra left the room, presumably to head back to the docking hatch so that they could detach the cargo ship so that the Normandy could fight unhindered.

"Fine. Consider this the first impression you'll be making on me," the Commander said in a serious manner. "If you prove you can be trusted then we'll see about working with you against these Goa'uld. One lie, one omission, though, and it WILL cost you. Understand?"

"Completely, Commander," Anise said as though the very idea of not being honest with a potential ally was absurd.

"Then it's time to get this party started." The Commander moved to leave the meeting room. "EDI, sound battle stations, if you please."

"Acknowledged, Commander," EDI stated before a beeping sound came from the speakers. "All hands to battle stations. I repeat: all hands to battle stations. This is not a drill. Battle stations."

_**In Front of the Galaxy Map, Normandy Command and Control, Xander's POV**_

"Tok'ra shuttle detached and moving off, Commander," Oz said from the cockpit over the internal communications channel.

"Set an intercept course for the mother ships," he ordered as he looked at the holographic representation of the solar system with two triangles representing the Goa'uld ships. "Put us between them and Earth."

"Aye, aye Commander," Oz said before cutting communications link.

With that the ship began to move and its location was followed by a mini-Normandy on the hologram of the solar system so he'd know precisely where they were. EDI must've been automatically adjusting the holograms' scale and appearance as they went so that they'd have an accurate view of things every step of the way. He appreciated this since it'd make it easier to make decisions with a real time representation of every tactical variable involved right in front of him for examination.

It only took a handful of minutes for the Normandy to get to the position he'd asked Oz to put it in and, as the Goa'uld ships got closer, he decided to play this by the book just to be on the safe side.

"Open a channel to the approaching ships," he ordered, looking at the Watcher at the comm. station.

"Aye, sir," the thirty-something man declared tapping away at the controls.

"What are you doing Commander?" the lead Tok'ra asked, sounding surprised at his choice. "Zeus will not be open to diplomacy if that's what you intend. The Goa'uld have an overinflated image of themselves and consider all other forms of life there's to do with as they will."

"Maybe, but it will get them to focus on the Normandy rather than the Earth and give me some firsthand experience with them," he replied, not deviating from his choice. "Once I get a better idea of what 'Zeus' is like, I'll know how to handle him."

As much as he wanted to believe the Tok'ra representative's words, he didn't know her and had to consider the possibility that she was selectively feeding him information to make him see things her way. He wasn't going to let that happen, especially since he'd just asked every Watcher and Slayer on board to expose their faces to their guests in order to deal with the new arrivals. He'd discreetly asked EDI to see what she could do to tamper with the quality of any data recording devices their guests might have. He didn't know how compatible twenty-first century tech and Alliance tech was but anything the artificial intelligence could do to keep the people in power from connecting the Normandy to the Slayer Organization had to be explored.

Then, of course, there was the fact that if this System Lord threat turned out to be real, he'd have to talk to Giles about finding out how they could leave the ship here when they turned the rest of them back to normal. If there really was an alien threat, then it wouldn't be right to deprive the Earth of a ship that could save a great deal of lives in the right hands. Whether or not this Stargate Command was the right hands he didn't know but, considering the fact that the team of four hadn't tried to take over the ship so far, it indicated they were somewhat trustworthy.

Then again they could simply be trying to get what they want with words first and, if that failed, THEN they'd bring out the guns with accompanying bullets.

_If that's their plan then they're in for a BIG surprise._

He hadn't been kidding when he'd boasted that the weapons they were carrying wouldn't even give his kinetic barriers a light workout. While the weapons might be cutting edge on Earth, the weapons hanging on his back made them look like a bow and arrow by comparison. Given that the kinetic barriers built into his hard suit were designed to deal with projectiles fired from scaled down mass accelerators rather than gunpowder, it'd take quite a few direct hits from the P-90s to bring them down.

More than he'd ever allow before firing back for certain.

"Channel open, Commander," the communications officer declared looking up from his holographic console.

"Goa'uld mother ships, this is Commander Alexander Shepard of the Systems Alliance frigate Normandy" he said as clearly and professionally as possible. "You have entered the Sol System in direct violation of the Protected Planet's Treaty. State your intentions."

He waited for a reply, waited for a full five minutes, but when nothing was sent back in reply he decided to give it one more shot but with a bit more assertiveness.

"I repeat: state your intentions!" he ordered in a tone most people wouldn't disobey easily. "If you do not I will have no choice but to consider both vessels hostile and do whatever it takes to force your withdrawal from the system."

A minute without any kind of reply was as long as he was willing to wait and when that passed he knew what he had to do.

"Awful rude of them to ignore you," the eldest man amongst the military group said in a casual manner.

"Yeah it was," he said in an equally casual tone of voice. "I think I should lodge a formal complaint. Joker? Take us in. Tactical speed."

With that the hum that was always in the background of the ship increased in volume a bit and the mini-Normandy began to move a lot quicker in the holographic mock up of the immediate area.

"Give me a run down on their weapons and defenses," he asked the Tok'ra representative as he turned his head to look at her.

"A Goa'uld Ha'tak has sixty staff cannons arrayed across their hull to facilitate ship-to-ship combat and orbital bombardment. They are placed around the superstructure that surrounds the central pyramid in a manner that allows them to strike a target with a balanced amount of fire at all times. In Tauri terms, each bolt from a staff cannon carries the force of two hundred megatons."

"You get that, Joker?" he asked, having arranged for the pilot to listen in earlier.

"Loud and clear, Commander," Oz replied as the Normandy's approach changed to make it harder to hit. "Try not to get hit by the shit storm of energy blasts."

"Do you have no shields to protect this ship?" the representative asked, sounding a bit concerned.

"The Normandy has kinetic barriers and, while they've recently been upgraded, I'd rather not find out the hard way that they aren't up to taking a hit from those cannons," he replied, giving the necessary info without going into detail.

While the memories from Shepard made him think that the defensive additions to the ship would be enough to handle a couple of hits, he'd prefer to wait until Willow and Robin could take a look at the sensor readings. If they told him that the Normandy could take a couple of hits from the staff cannons then he'd risk moves where a direct hit was extremely likely.

They managed to get to just inside of weapon's range when the first volleys of cannon fire got sent their way but, just like he'd hoped, Oz 'Joker' Osbourne was ready for them. With speed and maneuverability more akin to a fighter craft, the SR-2 evaded the incoming fire by a respectable margin, convincing him that weapons fire was manageable.

_Time to see what a couple of Javelins can do._ "Jacob: give them a taste of our teeth. A short volley of Javelins to start things off."

"Roger that, Commander!" Robin said before tiny blips of fire leapt from the mini-Normady towards the Goa'uld vessels.

When the shots hit the holographic display showed briefly a bubble of energy surrounding the larger vessel but it didn't stay visible for long.

"Status on their shields?" he asked Faith, who'd taken the sensor station for him.

"The shields are being destabilized by the torpedoes, Commander," Faith replied said examining the sensor data on her screen. "It's not lasting very long, though. At this rate we would need sustained bombardment from all angles to bring them down."

"Then we get creative," he said before looking at Robin. "Bring the Thanix cannon online and charge it. We're going to have to time this just right."

Watching the Normandy dance around the two mother ships, he waited until Robin gave him the nod, indicating the weapon had a full charge, before putting his plan into motion.

"Joker, pick a ship and head for it on an attack vector. When we reach optimum striking position, I want you to bombard the ship's shields until they're are as unstable as they're going to get anytime soon. Once you've done that, fire the Thanix cannon down the Goa'uld's throat."

Without words of confirmation he watched on the holographic mock up as the mini-Normandy danced about on the approach to the closest Goa'uld vessel before a stream of mini-blips began to bombard it.

"Almost there… almost there… that's it!" Faith said before looking up at him. "The shield is as unstable as it's going to get with just us hitting it in one spot."

"You heard her, Jacob! Let'em have it!" he ordered, ready to deliver what he hoped to be the deciding blow.

"Firing Thanix cannon NOW!" Robin declared and then everyone watched as a line replaced the separate blips on the holo-display showing the battlefield.

They didn't have to wait long to see the results because seconds later the electromagnetic field filled with a stream of superheated molten metal punched through the Goa'uld's shields, striking the vessel and burning a hole clean through the middle of it. Secondary explosions were set off throughout the vessel and, if the sensors were right, the mother ship's shields went down for good, leaving it completely helpless.

"Status of the ship?" he asked Faith, wanting more precise figures on what his attack had accomplished.

"Extensive damage throughout the super structure of the vessel," Faith replied as she sifted through the information. "Secondary explosions detected throughout the ship. Looks like emergency force fields are popping up at random all over the place to keep out the vacuum but it's far from complete. They're dead in space in any case. The other vessel is breaking off and attempting to escape."

"Let them go," he said, walking off the platform that let him utilize the galaxy map. "Maybe hearing how a small ship like the Normandy kicked their ass will make them think twice about ignoring the Protected Planet treaty again."

"That… that is quite likely, Commander Shepard," the Tok'ra representative said, looking completely floored with how he'd managed to defeat a Goa'uld mother ship rather easily. "Zeus took a significant risk instigating this confrontation in the first place. Returning home in defeat might be a defeat from which he will never recover. Any system Lord who listens to anything he has to say will be skeptical that a ship as small as the Normandy could defeat a mother ship. However, in the absence of a more… acceptable explanation, they will likely wait before trying anything again."

"Good. Everyone, stand down from battle stations," he said before directing his words to the comm. connection with Joker. "Set course for the Tok'ra vessel, Joker."

"Aye, aye, Commander."

Turning towards his guests, he contemplated what they'd all just gone through and what the Tok'ra and the group of soldiers had told him. From what he could make out, the United States government was in the middle of a conflict of an alien empire and had allied themselves with a group called the Tok'ra. Judging from the fact that no space defenses were in the system to protect Earth, he could only conclude that the fight was primarily done with infantry rather than ship-to-ship. Depending on how long the conflict had been going on, the Goa'uld were either intimidated enough by the Protected Planet's Treaty to stay out of the Sol system or didn't think much of Earth threat-wise. His gut told him that this wouldn't last for very long. Sooner or later the System Lords would become powerful enough to attack without fear of the consequences and, unless a force existed to oppose them, Earth would fall within days.

The Normandy, mass effect technology, could be the only thing that would keep that from happening.

"You've made your case and this little skirmish has helped prove your point," he said, looking at each visiting group in turn. "That said, I'll still need to discuss this with the rest of my crew. They have a right to decide whether or not they want to get involved in a fight with aliens in another dimension. You'll have an answer in twenty-four hours."

"But—" the Tok'ra representative protested before he cut her off.

"That's enough. Leave," he said, making it clear that the time for discussion was over.

"See you in twenty-four hours then," the leader of the American military group said before looking towards the port side docking hatch. "Mind calling our ride for us?"

Nodding at the request, he told the communications officer to tell the Tok'ra shuttle it could return from where ever it was hiding. Looking over at Faith, he conveyed to her with a look alone that she had the bridge and that he'd be elsewhere thinking over their situation.

She nodded and so he left for the elevator to take it up to the captain's cabin.

He had some serious thinking to do.


	3. Ripples and Waves

Disclaimer: I do not own the copyrighted material contained therein. They are the rightful property of their respective creators and associated companies. I make no profit off of this whatsoever and I have no intention of changing this in the future. I write because it's fun and because there are those who enjoy reading my work. I would appreciate it if no legal action was sent my way because I sincerely doubted it'd benefit either side.

_**Stargate Command, The Briefing Room, Two Hours Later, Colonel Jack O'Neill's POV**_

"What is your appraisal of the encounter, Colonel?" General Hammond asked from his position at the head of the conference table.

"Well, they're a bit SHY I'd say, with all the scans and hiding their faces and all, but when the Goa'uld came calling they were pretty impressive." he replied, summarizing everything into one sentence, much to the General's annoyance.

It was a common enough practice of his that, whenever he returned from a boring, bad or otherwise not good mission he tended to be annoyingly brief with his reports. He never said more than he thought he could get away with safely and it annoyed Hammond quite a bit sometimes, to the point of marching right into his office with an order to write the whole thing over again. Most of the time he did as he was told but sometimes the General was understanding enough about what had happened on the mission that the old man had let it slide. In this case, however, it was more because he was still distracted by how easily the Normandy had managed to destroy a Ha'tak mother ship because it seriously made him want to do whatever they had to in order to sign the ship and the crew to the SGC. If one ship could take on two Goa'uld ships without even scratching the paint, then a small fleet of them could be all Earth needed to start kicking some major snake head butt.

"Care to… elaborate, Colonel?" Hammond asked with a warning tone in his voice.

He contemplated for a minute dragging out his bit of fun a little while longer but a single look from the General's eyes caused him to do what he was told in his case.

"It was clear from the beginning that the people on the Normandy wanted to keep what we could learn about them to a minimum. They wore armor to conceal their faces and I have a feeling they made sure that anything on their holograms was something we couldn't make out," he replied, putting what happened into a more briefing appropriate format. "They were also skeptical about what we could do to help them get back to their dimension of origin. It wasn't until the Goa'uld Zeus showed up, acting all rude and everything, that I think we got a piece of compelling info to work with. They've seen what we're up against now, General, and I think that's made them think twice about leaving the negotiation table."

"You believe they're still open to the possibility of working with Stargate Command against the Goa'uld threat?" Hammond asked in order to make sure he understood things correctly.

"Yep! Said they'd get in contact with us tomorrow," he replied before thinking of something to add. "We might want to tell'em about the Asgard and the Tollen, sir. If they're looking for a way home it'd be a good idea to let them know we have resources that can help."

"You don't think the Tok'ra offer of help will be enough?" Hammond asked, having already been told of the offer made by Anise.

"With all due respect to the Tok'ra, sir, they're not in the best position to do much of anything." He tried to keep his less than satisfied opinion of the 'good snake-heads' from his tone and it was mostly successful. "They're essentially a resistance force, sir, a terrorist group, and most of their resources they get from raiding Goa'uld System Lords. The odds of them finding some sort of dimensional doorway or building one powerful enough to send the Normandy and their crew home is the same as me understanding Carter when she explains one of her doo-hickeys for an hour."

"As much as I might not like the Jack's term for my inventions, I agree with him, sir," Sam said, reinforcing his position. "The Asgard and the Tollen are far more likely to be able to help than the Tok'ra."

"Well, since Anise and the Tok'ra that came with her are no longer here, I'll have to take your word for it," Hammond said, remarking on the fact that, almost immediately after dropping SG1 off, the Tok'ra Tel'tak hauled ass for home.

It didn't take a genius to figure out that what the scientist had seen had lit a fire under her ass and gave her a very big reason to debrief the Tok'ra Council in person. The woman was probably thinking the same thing as the rest of them: a new source of technology and firepower clearly proven to be good enough to be enough to handle two Goa'uld warships. Anise was probably as eager to study the new technology as Carter was and, once the Council heard everything, they'd probably insist on meeting with the crew of the Normandy directly. The ship currently in orbit around the moon was about to become the hottest topic in the known galaxy for both the good guys and the bad guys. If they could get Commander Shepard (he still couldn't believe there was a real life version of a videogame character walking around) to agree to stick around and help Earth, it might even be enough to convince other potential allies to sign on the dotted line.

"What is your appraisal of their technology, Major?" Hammond asked Sam, moving the meeting along.

"Very advanced, sir. Not at the same level as the Asgard or the Tollen but definitely centuries ahead of anything we have," Sam replied, getting into her 'geek mode'. "Their holographic interface technology is particularly interesting. They're actually able to generate holographic controls for all of their systems that respond exactly the same as ours but with a great deal more versatility. As for weapons… well, the fact that their torpedoes were able to destabilize the Ha'tak's shields enough for their cannon to punch right through when our naquadah enhanced warheads couldn't is just incredible."

"What she means to say, sir, is if they could at least leave behind instructions on how to make more of their toys, we'd have quite the surprise waiting for guys like Zeus the next time showed up." he said, trying to forestall another long winded babble fest by Carter. "Personally, though, I'd prefer asking them to spend some vacation time here before they head back home. Building our own ships and weapons is going to take time even if Carter can use what's built of the X-303 as a base."

"That'll be up to them, Colonel," General Hammond declared, making it clear what his position was on the matter. "However I have been instructed by the President himself to make every effort to secure an alliance with the Normandy and her crew. If an alliance proves to be impossible then information on their technology and weapons would be considered an acceptable substitute."

"We'll do what we can," he said, not wanting to promise anything they might not be able to deliver on. "It'll all depend on how much they trust us, sir. How much they think we can help them."

"Very well. In the mean time I suggest that Doctor Jackson and Major Carter review what information they were able to bring back from the mission." George said, turning to the people in question.

"Um… there might be a problem with that, sir," Major Carter said, sounding a little baffled. "Before coming to this meeting I wanted to check some of the video recordings our helmet cameras recorded but, when I attempted to watch a few minutes, all I got was static. I tried all of the others and got the same result."

"Some sort of electronic interference?" Hammond asked, hazarding a guess at the cause.

"Possibly. I'd have to examine the cameras more thoroughly in order to be sure," Carter replied, sounding like she had quite a few theories. "However, given how serious they were about keeping what we learned to a minimum, it's possible they employed some device to prevent any recordings from making it back."

"Understood. Write down what you can remember and review it for any new conclusions you can draw." General Hammond ordered before looking at the gathered group as a whole. "Dismissed."

With that SG1 broke apart, with both Daniel and Sam heading to their respective places of working to do as Hammond asked while Teal'c was likely off to either the gym or a session of Kelno'reem in his quarters. As for him, though, he'd be heading back to his quarters to play a couple of hours of 'Mass Effect' on his X-box to see how it compared to what he'd seen in person.

It still made his head spin that he was on an actual spaceship that as far as he could tell shared a disturbing amount of similarities with what was in the game. In the five years since he rejoined the Stargate program he'd seen many amazing things that made his head hurt and others that left him realizing just how… young… everyone on Earth really was when compared to the rest of the galaxy. However, never in his wildest dreams did he ever think something fictional could pop up out of nowhere and kick some snake-head's ass. It made him wonder if anything else was going to show up to surprise him and then he personally hoped that the Normandy was the only thing from the Mass Effect world to hop dimensions.

There had been some things he remembered from that game that'd scare the hell out of him if he ever had to face one in person.

_Still, it'd probably be a good idea to get some experience fighting them,_ he thought as he arrived at his quarters and went right over to his X-box.

Within minutes he'd finished creating his own Commander Shepard and was going through the opening minutes of the game that had turned out to be more than a game.

_**The Normandy SR-2, Five Hours Later, Outside the Captain's Quarters, **_

_**Rupert 'Hackett' Giles' POV**_

Pressing the button that would allow Xander to know that there was someone outside his room who wished to speak with him, he waited for a reply and reviewed what would be discussed.

After they'd seen the last of their guests depart and their ship leave the system using some manner of FTL travel method, everyone on board had unconsciously begun to follow what their second set of memories told them they should do. Even he was no exception to that as he had gone to each department to take a look at relevant battle data while asking for their thoughts on the encounter. Some had looked decidedly 'wigged out' by what they'd been doing while others had merely taken it all in stride seizing the complex duties as a means by which they could distract themselves from their conditions. It'd only been an hour or so ago that he'd checked in with Willow to see what progress had been made to modify the shuttle so that they could return to the castle. Much as it was with many things, the longer they remained in their altered forms the less likely he would be able return them to normal. The changes would have time to 'set', as it were, and much like how concrete could not be reshaped once it had finished hardening, some spells effects could not be changed once they'd taken root. Willow had informed him that the shuttle should be ready for use within the next half hour and stated that she'd like to be on the first trip down.

He'd agreed not only because she was the most likely to be able to help him analyze the specifics of the spell but also because she was one of the most affected by the spell.

"Come in." Xander said from within the room.

Pressing the required button he watched doors open to reveal a relatively luxurious captain's quarters that he began to evaluate it both from a Watcher's point of view and from the admiral's. The Watcher side of him found the quarters to be akin to a fairly expensive hotel room that he regularly tried to dissuade Buffy from staying in due to the cost per night. The Admiral side of him found the place to be unnecessarily luxurious for a commanding officer's quarters and attributed the frills to Cerberus.

Xander sat in front of the desk and seemed to be reviewing schematics and files on the various ship systems and weapons both built into the ship as well as those that could be carried by the crew. He had a few theories as to why the young man was doing this and it was a secondary reason why he'd thought it prudent to have a talk with the current person in charge of the Normandy.

"So what's the what, G-man?" Xander asked as he turned away from his computer.

_At least it's good to know that his natural personality and memories are still dominant,_ he thought even as he managed to suppress the urge to roll his eyes. "I thought you should know that Willow's modifications to the shuttle should be complete within half an hour."

"Good. The sooner we can get the specifics of the spell, the sooner we can put things back to normal," Xander said shutting down the computer and getting up from his chair. "Well, at least as normal as things ever get for us."

He could tell by looking at the little signs in the young man's body language that he was not as enthusiastic about turning things back to normal as others were.

"Is something the matter, Xander?" he asked in order to see if the young man would explain his lesser enthusiasm.

"No, not really. I've just been thinking about the fight we just found out about. The Goa'uld versus Earth and the Tok'ra." Xander replied taking on an introspective look. "I thought we had enough to deal with when it was just demons and magic. Now we have aliens, spaceships and energy weapons. If it wasn't for the memories I got from Shepard, I'd totally be freaking out here."

"I am also glad to have General Hackett's memories, though I do find it a bit unsettling how much more technologically informed I am now," he said honestly as he recalled how easily he understood some of the terms the others had used. "As to the revelation that the American military is in conflict with an empire of aliens, I too am concerned but if I am right they have been fighting for a number of years without it becoming public. We must trust that they are competent enough to continue to do so in our absence."

"Should we just leave it up to them?" Xander asked, sounding like he was of a different opinion.

"I realize how you can be sympathetic to their situation, Xander, however you must realize that we have a fight of our own to contend with," he said, trying to reason with the young 'commander'. "We cannot fight a battle on two fronts. Indeed our agreement with the American government prohibits Slayer involvement in military matters save in situations demonic or supernatural."

"I know! I was there when you hammered out a new agreement with them after we took over." Xander said with a bit of anger in his voice. "I wasn't talking about having a Slayer in every offworld team. I just thought we could give them some mass effect technology. Maybe… maybe even give them the Normandy, or at least the blueprints to make one themselves."

"I thought as much," he said as one of his theories was proven to be correct. "Xander, while I understand your desire to help them, providing them with mass effect technology could have terrible consequences in the wrong hands. This is not a united Earth like in the world our costume personalities came from. The technology you would give them could be used against other nations rather than these Goa'uld."

He could tell that the young man had considered that possibility as well and that it was probably the only thing that stood in Xander's way, metaphorically speaking.

"That was why I was looking through the Normandy's databases," Xander said, looking back at his deactivated computer. "I was trying to find technologies and medicines that couldn't be turned into weapons. At least not at the technological level Earth is at currently."

"Did you find anything?" he asked, politely curious about what his old friend might have found.

"A few little things but nothing really that could help in the battle against the Goa'uld," Xander replied, sounding like he'd continue to look as long as he could. "A lot of what's in there is based on mass effect technology. Given enough time it's not impossible that they might find a way to figure out the weapon applications possibilities. I'd probably have to talk with Willow about it. If she inherited even half the know-how of Tali, she might be able to figure out a way to minimize the risks."

"Perhaps. In the meantime I think it'd be best if we got down to the castle to find out more about the spell itself," he said, trying to pull Alexander towards more immediate concerns. "There are those aboard that would very much like to return to their former selves sooner rather than later."

Indeed.

While Willow might've kept herself busy with modifying the shuttle there, were still signs of how she wasn't coping well with her new alien form. The occasional pause in her movements when her empty two fingered gloved hand came into view or when her habit of brushing a lock of hair aside caused her hand to impact on her helmet. The brilliant young woman never paused for long before she returned to her task but the signs were becoming cumulative. As long as Miss Rosenberg was kept busy, as long as they maintained a steady rate of progress, he was confident that she'd be able to hold it together. However the longer it took for them to bring together what they needed in order to undo the changes they'd all underwent, the more irrational he suspected she'd become until her mind finally coped with her condition.

"Right. Let's suit up and head down." Xander said, heading for the elevator.

"You think we'll need armor and weapons?" he asked with polite interest.

"Have we ever gone into a situation like this and not needed to kill something?" Xander asked in return with eyebrows raised in a manner that made his opinion clear.

"Good point," he said and with that they got into the lift, pressing the button for the shuttle bay.

Murphy did have a tendency to cause them trouble more often then not.

_**Approaching the Castle Headquarters of the Slayer Organization, One Hour Later**_

_**Willow Rosenberg's POV**_

"You sure your modifications let us get down here without being spotted?" Andrew asked as they proceeded quickly yet carefully towards the castle.

"As sure as I can be considering I've never touched the technology before yesterday and only have fake memories to work with." she replied a bit snappily as she kept her shotgun at the ready. "If everything worked out the way I planned, all of the satellites that could've spotted us are sending looped recordings down to Earth and the changes to the shuttle's kinetic barriers would make us difficult to eyeball from any planet based telescope. I doubt it'll last forever so we'll have to make this quick."

The truth, though, was that they probably had at least a day or two before someone in charge of monitoring the satellites spotted anything unusual and then another six hours or more before they actually managed to fix the changes she and EDI had managed to make. It had been both fascinating and disturbing just how easily she and the artificial intelligence had managed to commandeer the satellites and rig it so that a loop of 'everything is normal' kept playing for the folks watching on Earth. The things she knew about computers and mass effect technology now was easily triple, if not quadruple, what she'd known before the party and it showed in what she could do. If she'd been asked to modify a futuristic shuttle craft three days ago she wouldn't have known where to start technologically and probably would've just jumped straight to using magic instead. However she'd gladly give up her newfound knowledge if it meant she could be human again because, thanks to the memories and mind echo of Tali'Zorah vas Normandy, she knew what her future would be like if she wound up being stuck in her current form: stuck in an environmental suit in order to avoid getting sick thanks to a piss poor immune system.

Being forced as a member of a dextro-protein species to eat refined edible paste or specially purified Turian food when away from the flotilla because the food of other species would either poison her or trigger a severe allergic reaction.

Never being able to feel the skin of another brush up against her own without getting a shit ton of antibiotics, immuno-boosters, herbal supplements and other such medicines poured into her.

So many doors would be closed to her it wouldn't even be funny and she'd never be able to see her parents again, that was for damn sure. While she might not have had the best of relationships with them growing up, it'd gotten a lot better when she'd saved them from a group of vampires with a team of Slayers. After that she'd pretty much told them everything about what'd happened in Sunnydale and what she was doing currently for the Slayer Organization. It'd taken Ira and Sheila Rosenberg a few days to come to grips with the revelation but once they had they'd gone above and beyond to show their pride in what she'd accomplished. They'd even offered their services as psychologists for the Organization for some of their more troubled members in exchange for information on demon psychology. Like her they were always happy to learn something new and studying the minds of species unknown to the rest of the world was too good to pass up.

However some knowledge came at too great a cost and her humanity was definitely not something she was willing to abandon for the knowledge the young Quarian would give her.

When they reached the outer perimeter of the protective wards she signaled the others to stop since she'd almost certainly need to do some slick magicking to let them all get inside. Closing her eyes, she called upon the magic within her body and prepared to weave it into the pattern that would allow her to force the wards to see them as allies. However it was as she began to utter the words that would do what she wanted that she noticed with all too unexpected sharpness that something had changed. While she was still able to imbue her words with power, they didn't… feel… like they used to or flow as she remembered. She had been worried that a change in species would affect her magic but she took heart in the fact that it hadn't abandoned her entirely. It made the altering of the wards to allow them safe passage more difficult but she accomplished it just the same.

"I've altered the wards just enough so we'll be seen as non-hostiles," she told the rest of the team. "It'll take a bit more than this to get them to register us as allies."

"Non-hostiles is good enough for me," Xander said as he turned his gaze to the entrance they'd been aiming for. "Let's go."

Not needing to be told twice she followed him into the castle and, once they were inside, she reached forth with her arcane senses to find whatever traces of the spell that had changed them all. However, despite her efforts, she could only sense the barest traces of the lingering taint she'd found within herself thanks to an overpowering field of energy that obscured the rest thoroughly. It took her a moment but she recognized the overpowering energy well enough to know what might have contributed to the permanent effect the spell had on all of them.

The power of the Key; the power of one Dawn Summers.

After the portal had been closed by Buffy it had been the general consensus of the Scoobies that whatever power the young Summers girl had possessed had been exhausted. A part of her, though, had suspected that some lingering traces of the dimensional energy that was the Key remained within the young blonde. It supported her theory that the Janus Halloween spell had interacted with the energy of the Key and amplified the effects of the spell so that not all party goers needed to wear treated clothing. However she still didn't know how the changes had been made to last past the termination of the spell and hoped that she'd find her answers once they found the central spell location.

"Alright, let's split up," Xander said, instantly taking charge even though they were no longer on the Normandy. "Whoever did this spell would've chosen someplace with as little foot traffic as possible so no one could screw up their plans. That means the dungeons Willow was planning on turning into a spell room, the base of the cliff beneath the castle and the vault."

"Me and Giles will take the vault," Buffy said, volunteering to search that location.

"Sure, but keep an eye on her, Giles," Xander said to the man still wearing an Alliance admiral's uniform. "There're plenty of things in there that'd make Kasumi's hands a little twitchy."

"HEY!" Buffy exclaimed in protest. "I'll have you know I'm in complete control of myself!"

"That why you slipped that silver broach that was on the table into your pocket a minute ago?" Xander asked and immediately the blonde Slayer looked a little awkward. "Andrew and Faith will take the dungeon while Dawn and I take the base of the cliff. It goes without saying that if any of you find anything to call it in. Questions?"

No one said anything though whether that was due to the 'Mass Effect' personalities naturally deferring to the one they recognized as Commander Shepard or because it was a good plan she couldn't really say.

"What about me?" she asked, noticing that she'd been left out of the search.

"You're going to head to your magic lab to see if there's anything missing or out of place," Xander replied promptly as the others went to their destinations. "If one of our people is behind this they had to have taken something from there to cast the spell. Besides, you're going be seeing a lot of the place if you're going to figure out with Giles a way to undo everything."

"I'm there! It shouldn't take me long to find out if anything is missing," she said, instantly formulating an efficient search method. "I record every second week how much of each ingredient we have. I just did it six days ago."

"Good. Now let's get going people," Xander said as he began to walk away with Dawn. "Clock's ticking!"

Turning she navigated her way through the hallways of the castle to her main lab, making a list of ingredients that she believed might have been used in the Janus spell as well as various enhancing components. With a little luck by the time she'd finished determining what had been used the others would have the location of the spell casting location and she could get a good look at it.

Reaching her destination, she pushed open the doors to the lab expecting to find a room full of books and jars but instead what she got was the business end of a crossbow pointed at her helmet and the blade of a sword at her throat.

"You've got ten seconds to tell us where our friends are, chrome dome, before we crack open your helmet and get the answers the hard way," threatened a voice that she knew all too well.

"No problem," she said, hoping that she could get herself out of the situation without damage to her suit.

This was NOT a good start to things.

_**Just Outside the Lift at the Base of the Cliff, Dawn's POV**_

_Amazing,_ she thought as she used the biotic powers she'd gained to lift random rocks off the ground. _It'd take years of training under Willow to do this but Liara's memories say that even a ten year old Asari could do this within a year of practice._

Remembering an old scene from a movie, she began to make the rocks move around the biggest one like a mini-solar system, though it was a bit harder than she'd thought it'd be to alternate the speeds at which each 'planet' moved. It didn't stop her from trying, of course, but when she lost control of one of the rocks, causing it to fall to the ground, she reluctantly decided that it was time to return to the task at hand.

"Any sign of the spell location, Xan?" she asked, turning to where she last saw him.

"Um…. no, nothing," Xander replied, looking somewhat unsettled and distracted. "Guess whoever did this worked the mojo someplace else."

In a moment of insight she realized that he must have caught her little show of biotics and been quite… entranced… by it and perhaps by her. Old warmth rose within her at this possibility because, while time might have passed for her and her old crush on the man may have lessened, now with Liara's mind echo within her she felt the flutter of new life for her crush. She 'remembered' everything that Liara had experienced since the day she'd first met Commander Shepard on Therum to the last night they spent together on the Normandy SR-2 after taking down the Shadow Broker. It would have been different if the Shepard she remembered had a different face or been a different gender but the one she remembered had Xander's face, as well as his voice. As the memories went through her head, she was amazed by how similar Shepard's choices were to what she knew Xander would've done in the same situation. It was these similarities, the acts of heroism and courage that caused her admiration and feelings of affection to change from familial to something decidedly not.

_Maybe I shouldn't have given up on my feelings quite so quickly._

Before she could think more on the matter, though, her omni-tool beeped, notifying her that someone was trying to contact her. A few taps of the holographic keys and the connection was opened and she wondered if it'd be good news rather than bad.

"Yes?" she asked, hoping to prompt a response.

"We found the spell location and who cast it," Faith replied through the omni-tool. "It was Posey. She's here and awake but I don't think anyone's home or if they are, they're not answering the door. Other than a goofy smile on her face and some moaning we haven't been able to get a single word out of her."

"We're on our way."

Shutting off her omni-tool they re-entered the lift they'd used and in minutes were back inside the castle, making their way to the dungeon that was scheduled for renovation. In the end they were the last group to arrive but when they did arrive they found the group was five people stronger than there'd been in the shuttle.

Kennedy, the Watcher in charge of the place where she was stationed and three other Slayers were present but, given their lack of hostility, it looked like proper identities had been established, thus preventing a hero versus hero rumble. Willow was over by a table littered with ingredients evidently cataloguing what was there while Giles examined the drawings on the floor with equal diligence. Judging by some of the mutterings coming from two of the smartest people she knew, what they were figuring out was either very good or very bad.

"Fucking bosh'tet!" Willow yelled before throwing a bottle of something golden at the nearest wall.

_Definitely very bad!_

"What's wrong, Willow?" Xander said, moving to try and calm his friend down. "What've you found out?"

"She called on the power of more than one GOD!" Willow replied, whirling around to face her friend with the little dot on her helmet blinking in time with her words. "Not only did she ask Janus for power but also Jupiter, Vulcan, Mars and Victoria! All from the same pantheon of deities!"

"And I am supposed to take it that's a bad thing?" Xander asked, clearly not comprehending the significance of the information.

Seeing that Willow was a little too emotional to explain she decided to take a crack at it based on her knowledge of magic.

"Undoing the work of one deity is hard enough, Xander. You have to understand the deity's powers, their place in their respective pantheon, their history and their weaknesses before you can attempt to undo a spell that has them as a major contributor of power," Dawn replied, hoping she was getting it right. "Even then it depends on whether or not the deity in power is willing to have the spell undone. To have five separate deities contribute their power to the spell multiplies the difficulty of turning us back to normal big time."

"Indeed the complexity of the symbols and the lines on the floor substantiate Willow's theory that Posey used power from multiple deities to fuel the spell," Giles said, concluding his examination of the writings on the floor. "If it wasn't for the lack of asking for permission and the possible ramifications, I might be inclined to be impressed with her work. To take a spell as potent as the Janus spell and modify it to this degree is an impressive feat of sorcery. Enough to make me believe she might have had help from someone in the arcane division."

"When I find out who, I'm going to sic Chiktikka on him!" Willow growled with anger as she began to take scans of the writings on the ground with her omni-tool.

Given that that was not the normal way the (former?) redhead usually did things, she could only assume that Willow's severely upset state was causing her to act on an instinctive level, with Tali's way of doing things coming to the forefront. It took only a few minutes for the scan to be completed and then, as though to test the results, a holographic copy of the arcane drawings appeared in the air. Truthfully it was rather impressive and allowed a clearer picture of what Posey had done as far as drawing and writing the necessities of the spell. It also got across just how complex the spell had been and hinted at the workload they'd have to get through in order to construct a counter spell.

It would be a LOT of work.

"So what're we looking at in terms of rigging a counter spell?" Xander asked, walking around the edges of the hologram.

"Difficult to say without taking the time to more thoroughly examine everything," Giles had said, looking at the table with the ingredients. "However, given past experience with countering spells of a similar level and including the complexity of dealing with this many deities, I would say… at least a few weeks to two months."

"Definitely going to need to buy some time with the military then," Xander said, finishing his examination of the hologram. "I told them they'd have our answer by tomorrow and we're going to need a reason to stick close to Earth one way or another."

"What do you have planned?" Giles asked sounding cautious about the older man's words.

"We tell them we're willing to work with them on a probationary basis to test the feasibility of a working alliance with them." Xander replied as though still working out the details in his head. "We refuse to hand over to them any technology or information that's potentially dangerous until the end of the probationary period. That should buy us at least three months or so to work out a counter spell and then we just vanish on them. Poof! No more Normandy or advanced tech."

"Sounds like it could work as long as the military doesn't get pushy about an exchange of info," she said after considering her friend's idea. "Considering the Normandy kicked the ass of one of their enemies, you gotta believe they're just dying to get some ray guns of their own."

"Given the fact that they have zero kinetic barriers and don't even have a spacecraft of their own, I think we can handle pushy," Xander said, sounding pretty confident in being able to firmly tell the American military 'NO'.

Given what she knew of the Normandy crew's capabilities, along with the specialists that surrounded her, she was inclined to believe him.

_**The Kodiak Shuttle, En Route to the Normandy, Xander's POV**_

"You think that Willow and Giles can really figure out a way to turn us back, Xan?" Faith asked from her position on the opposite bench in the passenger compartment of the shuttle.

"They're two of the smartest people I know," he replied as he looked away from the shuttle window. "If they can't figure out a way to turn us back, then a way doesn't exist."

Of that he had no doubt.

In the time since he'd first met both of them they had exhibited a level of smarts that never ceased to amaze him and make him believe they could overcome any threat. Did he believe that they could overcome this problem as well? He'd like to believe so but he had to admit that this was something that they'd only had to deal with once before and, if Willow's mood was any hint, Posey'd really managed to complicate things for them. The odds of his best bud and the G-man managing to untangle the mess and reverse changes done by five different deities weren't very good even from an optimist's point of view. Only the fact that they'd managed to beat the odds before kept his hopes up but the Shepard side of him knew that luck had to run out sooner or later. Eventually even the best met a problem they couldn't solve, an enemy they couldn't defeat or an obstacle that couldn't be overcome no matter how hard a person tried. Would this be one of those times?

He hoped not but both his experience as well as the experience of Alexander Shepard made him believe that he should start thinking about the worst case scenario and what to do about it.

The worst case scenario in his mind was the irreversibility of their transformations and the opening of hostilities between the Slayer Organization, the United States military and whatever forces the Tok'ra could bring to bear. While most of those affected by the spell remained human, at least in appearance, there were a great many who'd been turned into decidedly alien forms. Glamors and spells might let them hide the truth for a time but sooner or later word would get out, whether by accident or someone's design. Like Dawn had mentioned earlier there was a possibility that the USA military might decide to take aggressive action to seize the Normandy and all the technology on it. They wouldn't be able to do it with a frontal assault so it was likely that they'd try to take hostages and offer to release them in exchange for technology. More than likely, though, some pencil pusher or amoral general would go back on their word once they got the technology they would either kill or take hostage whoever showed up to deliver the technology. He knew that in such a situation, if any of the 'specialists' remained free, they'd attempt a rescue but, while he doubted conventional firearms would be of much use, explosives would take chunks out of the hard suit's barriers easily enough.

_That's not even touching on what the Tok'ra could bring to the fight,_ he thought as he considered what he'd seen of the non-Earth humans. _They have space travel, cloaking devices and probably at least something resembling energy weapons, meaning it's possible they could attack the Normandy._

Unless the Tok'ra had a ship much more powerful than the two Goa'uld ones, they would have to rely on surprise and their cloaking system in an attack on the Normandy. If the Tok'ra struck quickly enough after decloaking, considerable damage could be done to the Normandy before EDI or the crew could get the barriers up or maneuver away.

And that was assuming that the ship couldn't fire its weapons while cloaked.

The only option he could think of would be to have one of the techs still aboard the Normandy begin rigging the weapons with something that would fry crucial parts after a certain period of time. He would also have to order EDI that if the odds of the Normandy falling into unfriendly hands went above eighty-five percent to initiate the ship's auto-destruct sequence. If the Tok'ra and the United States military proved to be untrustworthy, he'd be damned if he'd let them get their hands on mass effect technology or HIS ship.

It was a couple of minutes later that the shuttle landed and, once he got out of his hard suit, he went to the bridge to see how things were going. It didn't take him long to find Robin, the person he'd left in charge when he and the others went down to the castle, and with his approaching footsteps the man turned to face him.

"Ship's status, Robin?" he asked as they stood on the walkway leading to the cockpit.

"We've managed to repair most of the damage from the fight and what we couldn't repair we've managed to reroute around." Robin replied, taking on a more professional tone. "We're lucky Oz has as much of Joker in him as he does otherwise it could've been much worse."

"It's not LUCK! It was SKILL!" Oz yelled from his seat in the cockpit.

Both he and Robin had a good chuckle at this because through their memories of Joker, they knew the Alliance pilot would've said the exact same thing. Were they worried that the Jeff Moreau part of Oz was having too much sway over the young man? A little but he took confidence in the fact that if the musician was anything like him, it wasn't something that couldn't be fought off if a person focused enough.

"So what's the word on the spell?" Robin asked, sobering slightly as a serious topic took priority.

"Posey's definitely the one that did it but she's out to lunch. Some kind of sensory overload according to Dawn's omni-tool," he replied, remembering how Kennedy and her Slayers had taken the girl to their 'hostile guest' infirmary, complete with restraints and wards. "As for the spell itself it's a heavily modified version of the Janus spell Ethan Rayne cast back in Sunnydale years ago. That's a problem since it'll make undoing it a lot harder than the old spell. Giles and Willow are on it, though."

"Did they give an estimate on when they expected it'd be ready?" Robin asked, taking the news as calmly as could be expected.

"At least a couple of weeks, and that's assuming everything goes smoothly," he replied, remembering what Willow had told him.

"And if it doesn't?" Robin asked, obviously wanting to know what to expect if they hit a few bumps in the road.

"Either we'll be stuck this way or it could take a year or more to undo." He figured there was no point in sugarcoating things. "It is too soon to say anything more definitive."

"Well, while I hope that we can back to the usual craziness, I can't say I'd have a problem spending the rest of my career aboard the Normandy," Robin said, looking around the Normandy's CIC. "Before Spike killed my mother I'd thought about becoming an astronaut, seeing the Earth from orbit, but after she died that all went downhill. To get a second shot on a spaceship centuries ahead of anything Earth has… it's tempting."

"Yeah. I'd be lying if I said a part of me wasn't geeking out about all this," he said, letting a little of his inner child come out. "Spaceships, force fields, energy weapons…"

"Hot blue space babes?" Robin asked humorously with a smile on his face.

"You do know that's Dawn you're talking about, right? Buffy's sister?" he asked rhetorically, pointing out the obvious flaw in the image.

"No, I was talking about Aria T'Loak or the Consort Sha'ira," Robin said with a smile, as though a suspicion had been confirmed. "Both of them are excellent examples of Asari beauty. Funny how you thought I was talking about Dawn. See something special about her now?"

"She was always special but she's also Dawnster, Dawn Patrol, Buffy's little sister! I babysat for her back in Sunnydale when she was younger, for crying out loud!" he protested perhaps a little too vocally. "She's grown into a fine young woman but she is definitely not like… like… that for me!"

This caused Robin and a few of the changed Watchers sitting at the various stations to chuckle more than a little bit. Glaring at them both, he decided to remind them of who he was and who he'd gotten the skills of so that maybe they'd be a little less free with their yucks.

"You all do realize that I have the memories and skills of someone who went through the N7 program, right?" he asked with warning in his tone. "The elite of the elite of the Alliance military? I can think of at least fifteen different ways I can kick all your asses without doing anything that'd need more than an ice pack and a few bandages."

They just smiled at the threat, as if knowing that he'd never make good on his threat, or at least he wouldn't be able to hurt more than a few of them before he was restrained. They were right. As angry as he was at their ribbing, he wouldn't actually hurt them but he was entertaining ideas of assigning them boring or unpleasant tasks to be done with an obscene level of detail, though. After all everyone was being pretty much deferential to him thanks to his position as Commander Shepard and, as long as he didn't go overboard, he doubted anyone would really object.

"Fine. Just don't expect any glowing remarks on your next performance review from me," he said before he did an about face and headed for the elevator to return to his quarters.

He still had quite a few areas of the Normandy's database to go through to see if there was anything there that could be safely passed on to the governments of Earth that couldn't be weaponized in any way, shape or form.

_What FUN!_

_**Approaching the Planet Earth, Onboard the Tok'ra Tel'tak, The Next Day, Anise's POV**_

"Status of the engines?" she asked as she watched the home of the Tauri grow larger in the tel'tak's windows.

"It is fortunate that we dropped out of hyperspace when we did," Marnon said he piloted the ship towards the landing site designated by the Tauri of the SGC. "If we had maintained the high level of strain for much longer the engine would have broken down."

"A necessary risk," she said not even looking in her fellow Tok'ra's direction. "The talks with the High Council took longer than expected. The only way to meet the commander of the Normandy's deadline was to push the engines to this degree. Are they still there?"

"Yes. They are still orbiting the moon of the Tauri's home world," Marnon replied after checking the tel'tak's sensors.

"Good. Then we will pick up SG1 before proceeding to the Normandy." Ren'al of the Tok'ra High Council declared from her position a few steps away. "If their technology is as formidable as you say, Anise, then we will gain a valuable ally against the system lords."

"I assure you, Councilor, the power of the Normandy and its crew is very real," she said as earnestly as she could without forgetting the manner in which a scientist should act. "Only Zeus knows of their existence and he will be reluctant to let word spread of his defeat. If we can secure this alliance we will be able to make several strikes against the system lords before they can devise a defense against the craft."

"Indeed. You argued your case well before the High Council." Ren'al said, keeping the appearance that a high council member should. "It is because of your argument that I am here to broker an alliance with them in person. I hope this will not be a waste of my time."

"It will not be. I will make sure of it," she said, making it clear she would go to whatever lengths necessary in order to secure the Normandy's aid.

Indeed, ever since she had witnessed the Normandy destroy one of Zeus' ha'taks with relative ease, she had realized the importance of making the commander of the vessel an ally. It had been for that reason that she had ordered the Tok'ra subordinates that had come with her to plot a course for the world on which the High Council currently reside so she could inform them in person. It had been difficult and put great strain on the tel'tak's engines but, when they'd arrived, she had immediately asked for an audience with the full Tok'ra High Council. It was highly irregular, even for a respected scientist and archeologist such as her, to ask for an audience with the governing body of her people but in this case her long relationship with Councilor Ren'al proved fortunate.

Once all of the members were present she briefed them on what she had discovered from the moment her tel'tak had come out of hyperspace in the Tauri's system to the time she had left. She told of the technology she had seen inside the Normandy and how it was easily two to three centuries ahead of what the members of the SGC possessed. However what had caught the attention of the Council members the most was her retelling of the battle between the Normandy and Zeus' forces, that these new arrivals possessed weapons that could destabilize the shields of a Goa'uld ha'tak and pierce through one from top to bottom, which had caused many Council members to go silent with shock. When they asked for proof of her claims, Marnon had presented the sensor recordings from the tel'tak which had then displayed via hologram to the entire High Council. Seeing the video images for the first time herself, she was impressed with the skill of the ship's pilot in evading the staff cannon blasts from Zeus' ship. Many of the blasts missed by a sizeable margin and those that came closest revealed, if only just, the presence of an energy barrier wrapped around the hull of the Normandy. When the recording ended she informed the High Council of when Commander Shepard intended to make his decision regarding whether or not to enter into a relationship with the Tok'ra and the Tauri.

She had been asked to step outside the Council chambers while they deliberated on her findings.

It'd taken less than ten minutes to come to a decision but she had been somewhat surprised when Councilor Ren'al had stated that she would be accompanying them back. Members of the High Council were highly sought after by the Goa'uld System Lords so they mostly remained hidden away on the most protected of Tok'ra worlds. That Councilor Ren'al felt the possible alliance with the Normandy and her crew warranted her direct involvement said much about the importance the High Council placed on the matter.

It also told her how potent the ramifications would be should the mission fail.

Emerging victorious in this could very well put her on the path to one day becoming a member of the High Council herself one day. If it failed, however, it would be many years before she was involved in such an important assignment again. Indeed, the failure of her Za'tarc detection system and the near assassination of not only the Tauri leader but also the leader of the Tok'ra had shaken her standing among her people. Not enough to result in a reduction of her importance in their forces but enough that doubt now existed where before there had been none.

She would not permit failure when it could cost both her and the Tok'ra greatly.

"Be careful that, in your haste to seize victory, you do not shatter the ground beneath your feet, Anise," Ren'al said as though the Councilor had somehow perceived her thoughts.

"Yes, Councilor Ren'al," she said, bowing to the woman out of respect.

For the remainder of the descent to the planet's surface she remained silent, contemplating how best to ensure the success of the mission, but when they landed she prepared herself to face the members of SG1. Her host, Freya, though somewhat timid, had been troubled for some time after Colonel O'Neill had turned down her romantic advances. Her host had been truly attracted to the man while she had preferred Doctor Jackson due to the man's respectable knowledge in the field of archeology. Due to her failure with the Za'tarc incident, it had been decided that she should not be involved with the Tauri for a time, so she had been unable to pursue that possibility. When she had seen SG1 again to join them in investigating the Normandy, she could sense that while their distrust of her had lessened in potency, it was still there. They still harbored resentment for her withholding information regarding Apophis' prototype mother ship and for the emotional duress she'd placed the SGC under in her hunt for hidden Za'tarcs. Freya had been somewhat hurt by this but she had simply accepted it as a natural result of dealing with a people still so new to what lay beyond their own world.

They had only been fighting the Goa'uld for a few years and yet they thought that they knew what the right way or the wrong way to fight them was. They thought that those few years entitled them to the same level of access as the highest members of the Tok'ra. She and her fellow blended beings had been fighting against the Goa'uld System Lords for two thousand years, making the Tauri children by generous comparison. They had spent those centuries honing their methods of thwarting and hurting the Goa'uld to a degree she very much doubted the Tauri could fathom. She would be the first to admit that their methods might not produce immediate results, some strategies taking decades to reach fruition, but there was good reason for that. Unlike the Tauri, who could easily replace lost soldiers, the same was not the case for the Tok'ra. Their founder, Egeria, had only spawned a set number of symbiotes who thought as she did before being captured and killed by Ra, so their numbers could only go down with time. That was why they avoided direct confrontations with the System Lords and used stealth and deception to achieve their goals.

Such methods kept their number of casualties to a minimum, thus ensuring that one day the Tok'ra would see the end of the System Lords.

_We cannot blame them,_ Freya thought to her through their connection. _They have never had to deal with the dilemma of a fixed population number. As you said, they can replenish their numbers as needed._

_**Perhaps,**_ she thought back to her host as the doors of the Tel'tak opened.

As expected, SG1 awaited them, their weapons and tools hanging from their bodies, as though going on a mission. She mentally shook her head at this because, to her knowledge, they were going to meet a group of people that had shown no signs of hostility towards them, nor seemed inclined to without provocation. She supposed that they were merely being cautious in case the crew of the Normandy had been deceiving them earlier rather than being honest. Personally she didn't think so. Aside from a few understandable security precautions for dealing with unknown people, she found them to be reasonably honest with their intentions.

As such she would overlook the matter and hope that they didn't come to regret it later.

"Colonel O'Neill, SG1, may I present Councilor Ren'al of the Tok'ra High Council," she said, introducing her superior. "She will be negotiating on the behalf of the Tok'ra with the Normandy and her crew."

"Good to know," Colonel O'Neill said in his usual flippant manner. "Just to make sure to leave room for Earth at the negotiation table."

"Of course, Colonel," Councilor Ren'al said in her official capacity of Tok'ra representative. "We would never dream of excluding the Tauri from reaping the benefits of a relationship with the Normandy. We do have a treaty that specifically states that technology would be shared between our peoples."

"Just as long as you understand that," O'Neill said before turning his head to her. "Now I think we only have twenty minutes to get up there to hear what Commander Shepard has to say so let's get this show on the road."

_**He is quite irreverent!**_ she thought to her host Freya. _**He does not show Coucilor Ren'al the proper respect her position deserves!**_

_He does not know Ren'al as we do,_ Freya thought at her from within their mind. _I am certain if he took the time to get to know her as we have, he would respect her as we do._

Grudgingly she had to admit that respect was something that many people felt needed to be earned and, as this was the first time SG1 had the pleasure of meeting the Councilor, it would be this encounter that would form the Colonel's opinion of Ren'al.

A few minutes later all concerned parties were aboard the Tel'tak as it reached escape velocity and left the planet's atmosphere, then set course for the moon where the Normandy orbited it. Even though she had seen it before, she was still fascinated by the unusual design since it did not match any shape used by the Goa'uld, the Asgard or any other race she could name. As they approached she examined its exterior as much as she could visually, to see if she could identify any weapon ports or energy emitters. It wasn't easy but she was able to find a few possibilities that she would watch for if she saw any internal schematics once she was on board the Normandy.

At least then the encounter would not prove to be a total waste of time should the negotiations fail.

_**The Normandy SR-2, Conference Room, Later, Major Samantha Carter's POV**_

"Have you reached a decision, Commander Shepard?" Anise asked with what appeared to be almost eager anticipation.

It had been over an hour ago that they'd boarded the Normandy and been escorted to the conference room, where they'd discussed matters with the commander after the fight against Zeus' mother ships. While it'd looked like the commanding officer of the ship was ready to make a decision, Councilor Ren'al of the Tok'ra High Council wished to speak first. What had followed was a piece of diplomatic negotiation that was amazingly well put together and, in her mind, must have been designed with the care of a Swiss watch. All the arguments were logical and compelling, it appealed to the listener emotionally, almost certainly intended to convince someone with the most basic sense of honor to agree to the Councilor's point of view. It was a bit long winded, as evidenced by Jack fidgeting and expressing minor signs of boredom, but she still had to be a bit impressed at the work that'd been put into the argument.

"Councilor Ren'al's argument was quite compelling, Anise," Commander Shepard replied after looking at the Council member for the moment, "but before she'd said anything I'd made my decision to give this 'relationship' between our three parties a trial run for a couple of months to see if it should become more permanent."

She had to smile at this since it was a big first step to an exchange of technology between the Normandy and the SGC.

"However, for the duration of the trial run, my ship and my technology will not be open for examination or experimentation to either the Tok'ra or the SGC." Commander Shepard declared in a tone that spoke of serious repercussions if anyone failed to obey this rule. "Use of the technology will be granted after receiving permission from a ranking officer of the Normandy or one of the specialists on board. Failure to abide by this rule more than twice will lead to a serious review of our 'relationship' and possibly its termination depending on the severity of the violation. Is this understood by both parties?"

"Yes. Of course," Councilor Ren'al said, though there was a twinkle of disappointment in her body language.

"Sounds… reasonable," Colonel O'Neill said, with his disappointment hidden only a little less guarded. "So what do you have in mind for this… trial run?"

"Representatives of both the SGC and the Tok'ra will be posted on the Normandy," Commander Shepard replied as he glanced at both parties in turn. "They will be given limited access to the ship and its database during their stay. Any missions we go on will be reviewed and accepted or denied by me, no questions asked. I will not put my ship and my crew at risk unless I believe that the benefits of accepting the mission are worth it."

This was a bit more than they'd hoped for, permission to put a representative on board the Normandy and a willingness to accept missions, albeit after review, and she was confident that the trial period would be little more than a formality for a real alliance. She was certain that General Hammond would choose a representative wisely and that, by the end of the trial period Shepard had set for them, Earth will have successfully proven itself worthy of an ally. The only concern she had was that the Tok'ra might do something to endanger the potential alliance either by keeping secrets or by showing a disregard for the safety of the Normandy's crew. She was sure that not all of the Tok'ra were like Anise or some of the less pleasant members like her, but just as there were some potential representatives that'd hurt Earth's standing, there would also be Tok'ra who could hurt their standing.

"Do you have any preferences in terms of what sort of representative you would prefer?" Councilor Ren'al asked, sounding as though she was already considering possibilities.

"I'll leave the actual selection of the representatives to your people and the SGC, Councilor Ren'al," Commander Shepard replied diplomatically. "You know your people best and who best to trust with such a position. I would suggest, however, that you take care not to choose anyone whose… ambition… might cause them to do something foolish."

"We will ensure that the Tok'ra representative will be eminently qualified for the position and will not allow their personal agenda to influence their actions." Councilor Ren'al declared, sounding as though she would see to the selection herself.

"The SGC will also make sure it makes the right choice in selecting a representative," she said with honesty ringing through her voice.

"Good. Then to help you make your choices my second in command, Miss Lawson, will give you a tour of the Normandy's less sensitive areas and answer any questions you might have." Commander Shepard said, gesturing to the woman clad in a black and white form fitting bodysuit. "Obviously, though, there will be some questions that she won't be able to answer for security reasons, such as specifics regarding weapons, engines and communications. Anything else is fair game. Agreed?"

Every member of SG1 nodded in response, as did the Tok'ra present in the room.

"Then this meeting is adjourned," Commander Shepard declared before leaving the room, along with the two members of his crew, save Miss Lawson.

Looking at the dark haired, late twenties woman, a distinctly sour look was on Miss Lawson's face and, if she was right, she didn't think the woman very much liked the task she'd been given.

"Well then, if you'll follow me, I will begin the tour." Miss Lawson said with a smile that was meant to be friendly but looked somewhat forced.

For the next hour or so Miss Lawson gave them a tour of the ship, starting down in the shuttle bay where they saw the ship that had made trips back and forth to Earth, as well as an impressive looking tank. She almost laughed as she saw the childlike look of want on the Colonel's face when he saw what their guide called a M35 Mako. As Commander Shepard had stated the woman didn't go into great detail about the vehicles abilities but what she did reveal was quite impressive. It was like a combination of armored personnel carrier and tank all rolled into one. They were also shown the armory but told to keep their hands and any scanning devices to themselves. Many of the weapons she saw bore a similarity to known Earth weapons, albeit more advanced in design, but others were distinctly alien and looked distinctly techno-organic. She'd have loved to take the weapons apart to see how they worked but she was fairly sure that it'd be a while before the crew's trust would be high enough to allow that.

The next level up was the engineering level, as well as two cargo bays. The latter wasn't all that impressive, pretty generic, really, but the engine room, on the other hand, caused her to practically tune out anything that didn't have to do with the engine. Apparently it was much larger and different, technologically speaking, than what was in the original Normandy and helped power the four large antiproton thrusters that existed both aft and forward on the ship. The heat generated by the thrusters was apparently measured in the millions of degrees Celsius, meaning anything that got too close to them would melt within seconds unless additional protection was installed. The ship actually had a working fusion plant that worked with the drive core and the various electrical systems throughout the ship, making her almost willing to beg to get a closer look at it and analyze it. The engineering level tour ended with a brief explanation of the Tantalus drive core and how it was responsible for the Normandy being able to go faster than light.

_She's teasing me and she knows it!_ she thought after spotting an amused look on Miss Lawson's face.

Next on their tour was the start of the crew quarters, as well as the level where their infirmary and crew lounges were located, along with the life support control room. She also spotted what looked like cryogenic pods lining either side of the walkway on the far end of the room, though whether they were meant for people or objects she didn't know. When they were given brief peeks into the bathrooms and crew quarters, she estimated that the crew compliment at most would be fifty at maximum capacity. That pretty well meshed with what she'd seen so far of the crew, taking into account that almost certainly some members of the crew were in areas they didn't have access to yet.

The last stop on the tour was the combat information center and, while she had already seen much of it since it was the level they'd entered in through the portside docking hatch, Miss Lawson was willing to elaborate on a few things and even show them a holographic representation of the galaxy from their dimension. The woman pointed out to them the locations of the various alien home worlds that existed, as well as summarizing what those species were like. She'd read the descriptions provided by the videogame's website and listened to Jack describe them but to hear it from someone who'd physically met with a Turian or an Asari in person as well as often, was much more informative.

By the end of the tour when they were escorted back to the port side docking hatch, she was determined to do everything she could to ensure that no member of the NID or 'friend' of Maybourne's got named the representative of the SGC and Earth. She'd even be willing to go so far as to do something that'd get her thrown in prison if that's what it took to make the alliance with the Normandy not only a reality but a smashing success.

As far as the Tok'ra representative was concerned… as long as it wasn't Anise, she was sure it'd be fine.

It was as they were leaving that Commander Shepard rejoined them, though, he looked a little distracted by something.

"I trust you saw enough to help you choose appropriate representatives?" Shepard asked, looking at Ren'al first then Colonel O'Neill.

"Yes. You have given me much to think about," Councilor Ren'al replied, sounding quite happy with what she'd seen. "Our representative will be chosen and will arrive in the system within the week."

"Stargate Command will have a representative chosen by then, too," Jack said, sounding happier than he had in awhile.

_Probably just wants to take the Mako or some of their weapons out for a spin,_ she thought, half rolling her eyes. _Boys and their toys!_

_**Three Days Later, Deck 2, Combat Information Center, Faith's POV**_

_It never gets old,_ she thought as she looked at the sci-fi set up that was just starting to become familiar to her.

She'd been put in command of the CIC since oh nine hundred and had mostly been overseeing the last of the ship repairs, daily ship operations and a basic scan of the system. The last part had been something she'd gotten permission to do since she'd been more than a little bored just listening to the background noise of the crew. Her plan was to simply do a basic scan of each planet in the system and then compare it against what the Normandy had stored in its memory. She was also using the scans of each planet to catalogue the mineable resources present in each so that, even if everything got turned back to normal, at least the people from the SGC would know what they had available in the system. She doubted that some of the minerals, ores and such that her Miranda memories took for granted existed but it was still a worthwhile venture. Her improved memory, another side benefit from the changes to her body to better match Miranda Lawson, made it easy to retain the results of each new planetary survey and it only took a moment to check the sensor logs if she was uncertain about anything.

"How's the survey coming?" Robin asked as he walked up to take a place by her side next to the galaxy map.

"We've just finished scanning Neptune and will arrive at Pluto in a couple of minutes," she replied, pointing at the mini-Normandy on the holographic representation of the solar system.

"What's the point? It's just ice and rock," Robin said, only mildly puzzled about their destination. "Anything that's worth anything will be buried so deep no one on Earth will be able to get to it without a boat load of money."

"Call it curiosity," she said, never taking her eyes off the map. "In the 'Mass Effect' universe explorers found the remains of a Prothean outpost on Mars, giving them their first glimpse at a much larger universe. We've already scanned Mars but found no sign of the outpost at its historical location or anywhere else, so that was a bust. I just thought I'd satisfy my curiosity and see if the Charon relay exists here or not."

"An interesting notion," Robin said as the look in his eyes changed slightly. "The fact that the effects of the spell reached far enough to put the Normandy in orbit makes the possibility that it might've reached out further worth looking into. Still, you must think that the further away from Earth the spell went the weaker it'd get and the less it'd be able to do."

"I thought the same thing and honestly I don't think we'll find anything but… well, it's an itch I gotta scratch," she said, giving him a suggestive look to remind him how easily she gave into such itches.

Seeing him smile in return made her happy even though they were no longer officially an item on the romantic scene. For years they'd dated after the fall of Sunnydale but, as the years wore on, they'd eventually come to terms with the fact that, while they might like each other a great deal, it wasn't love. They'd split up after that, taking postings in different parts of the world, but stayed in contact with phone calls and emails when possible.

It didn't mean they didn't have the occasional roll in the hay every once in a while.

It just meant that there were no relationship strings attached afterwards.

"Coming up on Pluto now, Faith," Oz said over the internal communication system.

"Alright then! Settle into orbit just like before and, once you're done, begin planetary scan for anything useful."

"Miss Faith, there is something I believe you should see." EDI said, with her voice synthesizer actually managing to convey some surprise.

"What is it, EDI?" Faith asked politely, interested in what could require such surprise to be included in the AI's message.

"In an effort to satisfy your curiosity about the possible ramifications of the spell that brought the Normandy here and changed all of you, I began to scan the moon Charon the moment we entered sensor range," EDI replied before changing the hologram of the galaxy map to a more detailed one of Pluto and the space around it. "It was not until we entered into orbit around Pluto that we were close enough to do an in depth scan of Charon. This is what I found."

The hologram hovering then changed to one that had only Charon present before an amber light began to flow over the sphere like a wave, peeling away set amounts of matter. At first she didn't see what had caught EDI's attention but, once a third of the ice got peeled away, she instantly realized what had caused the artificial intelligence to be surprised.

Buried within Charon was an inactive mass relay.

"Everyone! Get to the CIC NOW!" she demanded once she'd opened a communications link with every Scooby aboard the Normandy.

Within minutes every Scooby was pouring out of the elevator to the rear of the holographic display, looking like they were expecting an attack of some kind. When they didn't get one most of them looked to her with inquiring looks on their faces, but all she did in return was point to the floating picture in the middle of the room.

If she wasn't recovering from the shock of EDI's discovery herself, she'd have laughed at the looks on her friends' faces.

"Is that… the Charon relay?" Xander asked, likely wondering if he hadn't been slipped something in his last meal.

"I have completed my scans and the mass relay buried deep within the ice is a one hundred percent match for the Charon mass relay." EDI replied, showing both current scans and information from the databanks holographically. "It is currently inactive. However, based on my readings, I do not believe it has been buried within the ice for very long. In fact, based on the information I have gathered, I would estimate that it was somehow placed there between five or six days ago."

"The spell!" Dawn said, jumping to the most likely conclusion. "Willow's already confirmed that the mixture of the spell and the residual Key energy in my body would have caused the effects to spread much further than the spell could alone. Once we agreed on that, we sent out requests to every branch on the planet to see if there had been any other changes to Organization personnel or their areas but nothing's popped up so far, so we thought it was limited to us and the Normandy."

"This changes things, though," B said, still wearing Kasumi's clothes with the hood still hiding the top half of her face in shadow. "If the spell reached this far and managed to make something the size of a mass relay a reality… we could have a much bigger problem on our hands."

"You think it might've gone beyond Earth's solar system?" Robin asked, looking at the senior Slayer on board.

"I don't know," Buffy replied, continuing to examine the sensor data. "We know that at full strength the power of the Key could tear down the dimensional walls between realities and dimensions, causing them to fall into ours. Maybe whatever was left in her body was just strong enough to make some serious changes to this dimension or pull things from a dimension in close proximity to our own."

"Until we have evidence to support that the changes went galaxy wide, let's assume that it's only Earth's solar system that's been affected," Xander decided, obviously not wanting to dwell on what ifs. "Also we should consider the potential FTL issues we might face in the future. Based on EDI's analysis of the Tok'ra craft, its range should be comparable to the Normandy's so, wherever they might need us to go, we should be able to reach without difficulty. Depending on how long it takes Willow and Giles to come up with the counter spell, we may need to look into ways to refuel and replenish supplies without the sort of methods our costume personalities are used to using.

"EDI? How much replenishing of stock can we do with what we have on board the Normandy before we'd have to look to outside sources?" Xander asked the AI, who was always listening in, most people thought.

"With our current stock of parts, materials and equipment, I would estimate that it would take two hundred and ninety-five days before we would be forced to seek outside help in maintaining the Normandy's functions." EDIT replied after three seconds of silence. "However, without more information on the Goa'uld and the level of threat they represent, I cannot determine precisely how long our munitions will last."

"Well, if they show up as often as Batarian pirates, we should have enough to throw at them until Red and G-man can put together the counter spell to get everything back to normal," she said, remembering from her Miranda memories the statistical average amount of Batarian pirate attacks per week in the Terminus systems.

"Let's hope so because I'm not crazy about the headache of trying to figure out who to give the contract work to," Xander said, expressing his lack of enthusiasm for that possibility.

She had to grin a bit at that because she knew that, even with how much he was complaining about it, she knew he'd do fine if it came that.

For all the jokes about his intelligence that some people (Xander included) might make about how smart he was, she trusted him to do the right thing for them.


	4. Let's see what's out there

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted material contained herein. They are the rightful property of their creators and/or associated companies. I make no profit from this whatsoever and I have no intention of changing this at any point in the future. I write because I enjoy it and because there are those who enjoy my stories. Therefore I would greatly appreciate it if no lawsuits were sent my way or criminal charges laid. I can promise that whatever amount of money you got from me wouldn't be even a tenth of what your lawyers would charge you for taking this to court.

_**The Castle Headquarters of the Slayer Organization, Main Arcane Laboratory, Two Days Later**_

_**Rupert 'Hackett' Giles' POV**_

"I understand. Continue investigating so we can find out just how widespread this is," he said as he spoke to the head of the Russian branch of the Organization.

"We will, Rupert," Boris Gurlukovich said over the phone. "Goodbye."

With that he hung up and wondered just what Posey had unleashed when she cast her spell and if was entirely the young Slayer's fault in the first place.

It had been a true shock to learn that, in orbit around Pluto, there now existed the ice-encased Charon relay that, for the moment, was inactive. When he had first taken some time to consider what had happened and the possible ramifications, he had presumed that the effects had reached no further than the castle, the immediate area around the castle and Earth's outer atmosphere. He had thought this because no spell he had ever heard about throughout his career as a Watcher had ever gone beyond that, so it never occurred to him to think this one would. As though directed by the hand of Fate, though, he had just learned that the potential ramifications of the spell could be more serious than merely a few transformed people and a spaceship.

"What's going on, Giles?" Willow asked, looking at him from her place next to the table surrounded by books and scrolls.

"I was just contacted by the head of our Russian branch and he has informed me of some rather unusual demonic behavior in the region." he replied even as he tried to make sense of the information himself.

"Unusual how?" Willow asked, actually interested enough to step away from her research for a few minutes.

A rare thing since, aside from sleeping and eating the paste brought down from the Normandy, Willow had been devoting all her time to figuring out a way to reverse the changes performed by Posey's spell. There had been attempts by others, mostly Kennedy, to draw her away from her work for a time so that she could relax and take a break, but that only worked a tenth of the time. Every other time his young protégé merely said that she would relax when she was everyone was back to normal and then blocked out any further attempts at persuading her to set her work aside. That his conversation with Ivan had proven successful nicely offset the feeling of dread he was feeling within him at the moment.

"Several demon clans and residents that his branch routinely encounters have all of a sudden vanished or left," he replied as he explained what had been discussed. "Those that vanished had lived in the same area of Russia for three centuries at least without any indication that they wished to leave for someplace else. The few that his Slayers had personally encountered leaving their usual areas of operation couldn't get a definite reason why they were leaving. Most of them only said that a demon they trusted, some of which possessed precognitive abilities, had been very frightened by something they'd seen and began preparations to leave immediately."

"Maybe we have another apocalypse on the way." Willow proposed after a moment's consideration. "Although it must be a big one if it's causing demons of an entire region to relocate. Have Boris' Slayers had any dreams lately?"

"Not that he's noticed and all of them know to report to him immediately if they experience a dream containing portents of an apocalypse," he replied, remembering his friend telling him that. "I've asked him to continue investigating the matter and to report anything of consequence to me as quickly as possible. I intend to send a similar request to the other branches to see if they are experiencing similar anomalies in demonic behavior."

"Hopefully we'll be able to figure out what's going on before fire starts raining from the sky this time." Willow said, referring to the rather spectacular blunder of Angel and his team years ago. "Once I'm back to normal, I'll do some looking around myself on the spirit plane to see if I can find anything wrong there."

"Perhaps you could do so tomorrow." he suggested in an effort to pry her away from her research for a short time. "As you know, it is often important to have as much advance knowledge of an impending threat as possible in order to defeat it."

"NO! I mean… I can't tap into my magic like I used to," Willow exclaimed before she calmed herself down. "It's probably this Quarian body. My soul might be the same as it always was but the body I'm trying to channel its power through is different. Even basic spells don't…FEEL…right when I try them now."

"Truly? Well then, I suppose it would be best to wait until we've reversed the spell on at least ourselves before you try any complicated sorcery." he said, agreeing with the young woman's reluctance to tap deeply into magic if she couldn't control it. "Do you perhaps know of anyone still in possession of their natural forms who might be able to explore the spirit plane in the meantime?"

"There are a few I could ask but they wouldn't be able to explore very far from their bodies." Willow replied as she turned back to the book she'd been reading. "None of them have the necessary magical reserves necessary to distance themselves from their bodies without great risk to their lives. I'll give them a call the next time I take a break to eat."

He sighed at this as he now knew he wouldn't be able to draw her from her work no matter what he tried now.

Deciding to see if Posey had recovered from casting the spell, he left the laboratory and headed for the infirmary where a local doctor who was 'in the know' as it were was monitoring the young Slayer. Even days after the spell had been broken by parties unknown, the young woman had not regained any level of coherency and most certainly could not answer any questions they might have. The doctor assured him that there was nothing to worry about as physically Posey was fine and did not possess any maladies of a medical nature that needed to be dealt with. The best the doctor could surmise was that, when Posey cast the spell, she experienced a level of sensory overload that her mind was unable to cope with. As a result, even though the spell was over with, the Slayer's mind was still reeling from the experience and it would need time to recover.

_If she does recover, then at least she will not have to live with the sword of Damocles that all Slayers do._ he thought as he recalled what they'd learned upon an arcane examination of Posey.

Based on the results of that examination, it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the young woman had been the one to cast the spell. It also revealed that, in place of utilizing inner magic like most wicca and wizards did, Posey had instead used the Slayer essence within her to cast the spell. This was both ingenious and incredibly reckless, given how deeply intertwined the essence was with the human spirit of its host. It could've very easily have killed her performing such a potent spell but instead all it had done was turn Posey back into a normal human being. There wasn't a speck of the Slayer essence still within the young woman's body and her reactions to various medications confirmed the lack of a resilient healing factor in her body. When she came back to them, presuming she ever did, she would of course be given the choice of whether or not to continue to work with the Organization as a member of the support staff or return to the civilian life she had before.

Given what he knew of Posey, he thought it quite likely that she would choose to remain with the Organization as a researcher or perhaps one of the administrative staff.

"How is Posey fairing today, doctor?" he asked as he entered the infirmary.

"No appreciable change, Mister Giles." Doctor Langston replied as he jotted some notes down onto a sheet of paper in a folder. "She's physically healthy but her mind is unresponsive. Beyond the medical, I'm afraid that I am unable to determine anything more."

"So, as with all things involving the mind, we can only wait?" he asked even though he had a feeling he already knew the answer.

"Indeed. While not identical to a coma, I believe that all we can do is wait for Posey to recover on her own." Langston replied as he set down the folder.

"Yes…well…she is a resilient girl," he said as he looked at the person being discussed, who still had a dopey look on her face. "I'm sure she will find a way back to us."

With that he left for the communications center of the castle to make use of the encrypted and heavily bounced connection they had with the Normandy. As soon as it became evident that travelling by shuttle or using their costume's communicators might not be the best move, they had managed to devise a means by which they could bounce a signal off of every communications satellite on the planet without making communications unreasonably difficult. Add to that an encryption used by the Systems Alliance military for high level messages and it was unlikely they would be noticed by the military or traced back to the castle.

True, they'd had to modify a few things both on the systems on the Normandy and in the castle in order to make it work but such things were trifles when compared to acquiring unmonitored communications capabilities.

When he entered the room, it was as usual abuzz with talking although this was only due to some temporary transfers from nearby facilities and branches. The vast majority of the castle's usual staff remained on the Normandy, running the various systems and in the interests of not risking awkward questions they hadn't risked making numerous trips on the shuttle shuffling staff about. Willow's efforts to conceal the shuttle might work in the short term but sooner or later the people manning the satellites in orbit and the telescopes on the ground would realize they were being deceived.

Until the counter spell was cast, they could not afford to draw unnecessary attention to themselves or the Normandy as that would complicate matters for everyone involved.

Things were complicated enough as it was.

_**The Office of General Hammond, SGC, Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, The Next Day**_

_**George Hammond's POV**_

"Yes, Mister President. I understand that some people have certain… misgivings about them but I really believe that they're the most suited to represent Earth and the SGC," he said as he spoke to the elected leader of the United States of America. "Their record speaks for itself and it is the best way to ensure that no rogue elements undermine this potential alliance with any shenanigans."

He listened as the commander in chief made his reply and gave his orders.

"Understood, sir," he said with a nod of satisfaction. "Goodbye."

_Well, that's one hurdle dealt with, _he thought as he hung up the phone.

It hadn't been easy but he knew right down to the depths of his soul that it was the right decision both for this alliance and for the future of Earth. From the first moment he'd been told of Commander Shepard's terms, he'd known that he'd be in for a helluva week discussing who'd be the SGC's representative aboard the Normandy.

He wasn't wrong.

If anything he'd underestimated the number of opponents he'd have to his instinctual choice, one of which regretfully was one Senator Robert Kinsey, who never ceased to be a source of trouble. Kinsey and his supporters, on the surface, had claimed to be quite in favor of the alliance and had put on quite a show of being reasonable with regards to selecting a representative. Some of the others involved in the discussion via conference call had been fooled by Kinsey's words but he hadn't. He'd scrutinized every candidate Robert Kinsey had put forward for consideration and even had Walter look for anything that might indicate NID connections. When the time had come for him to submit a candidate he had immediately submitted SG1 for the position and, just like he'd expected, Kinsey had objected vigorously to the idea. The fool, of course, had put forth every time Colonel O'Neil and the others had either made a mistake or were linked to a seriously close call situation. He had countered this by citing every time in which Earth had been saved only through the courageous and exemplary actions of SG1.

The debate had gone on for almost twenty minutes before the President had intervened and told everyone that he'd make his decision the day before the deadline.

Now the decision was made.

Entering the briefing room he found Jack and the others waiting for him, making him glad that he'd summoned them prior to picking up the call from the President. They'd want to hear what he'd been told given the potential ramifications for all of them.

"So what's the good word, General?" Jack asked in his usual manner.

"It is the decision of the President that SG1 be made the representatives of the SGC and Earth aboard the Normandy." he revealed with a measured smile of optimism.

"YES!" Jack exclaimed with enthusiasm in his voice.

As much as he wanted to share in his second in command's good cheer, there were some details that dampened his mood somewhat.

"However there were some…stipulations…that certain individuals managed to convince the President to include in the decision." he said, feeling a bad taste developing in his mouth. "As representatives it will be your duty to observe the crew of the Normandy and report on anything you learn while among them. Anything about their technology, their procedures or their dimension is considered acceptable."

"Sir? Commander Shepard made it clear that any attempt to covertly acquire information or technology from them could seriously endanger if not terminate the alliance." Major Carter pointed out, clearly not liking anything that would deprive her of an opportunity to examine advanced technology.

"I mentioned that and the President has said that you are NOT to attempt to steal their technology or hack their systems. Merely keep your eyes and ears open," he said, trying to stick to the lettering of the stipulation rather than what was probably put between the lines. "If you see a diagram, schematic or file over someone's shoulder or from a distance, concealed cameras in your gear can be used to take a picture. They won't be digital and they won't possess auto-focus features. It's hoped that by making the cameras as primitive as possible they won't be detected. We can then scan the images into our computers when you return and use software to digitally enhance what we can.

"You've also been asked to collect blood samples from the Normandy crew should any of them suffer an injury during battle. Use a bandage or a cotton swab, it doesn't matter." The foul feeling in his mouth grew. "It is believed that we might be able to learn something about their medicines or genetics through examination of their blood."

"Sir, I have a gut feeling about this but could you tell us WHO suggested these stipulations?" Jack asked, sounding very unhappy about what they were being asked to do.

"While there were many who supported them the man who submitted them was Senator Robert Kinsey."

"FORCRYINOUTLOUD!" Jack exclaimed as he slammed both hands down on the table.

"I did the best I could to persuade the President not to adopt Kinsey's stipulations but the good senator pointed out the lack of new weapons and technology brought back by the Stargate program," he explained with some bitterness. "While we have made allies, the lack of tangible benefits was enough to convince the President to agree to the stipulations."

He could easily tell that none of SG1 liked what they were hearing but all of them knew that until the president could be persuaded otherwise, they had no choice but to obey.

Or at least be SEEN to obey.

Colonel O'Neil and the others were no stranger to disobeying orders they didn't agree with, or at least they didn't put much effort into following them. Sadly Kinsey knew this as well, based on the reports he'd likely read concerning past missions, and that was why a final stipulation had been added which worried him the most.

"Kinsey also managed to persuade the President to agree to one final stipulation," he said, a tired tone conveying how hard he'd worked to deny it. "If SG1 threatens the alliance with the Normandy or fails to produce a tangible asset within the first four months of the beginning of the probationary period, a review board may choose to have you replaced with someone else."

"And how much do you want to bet that Kinsey'll just jump on the first little 'threat' he decides he can make stick in front of that review board?" Jack asked sarcastically, making it clear what his answer was.

"I don't like it any more than you do, Colonel, but the President has spoken." he said grudgingly. "Until I can find some line of reasoning or evidence that I can take to the commander in chief to persuade him to rescind these stipulations, you will need to follow them."

"I make no promises," was all Jack said, making it sound like following the stipulations would be like pulling teeth.

"In any case, once the Tok'ra representative arrives, both parties will go to the Normandy to inform Commander Shepard." he said, moving the discussion along. "Based on Goa'uld intel we possess and discoveries made by other SG teams, I've already selected a few possible missions for the Normandy to undertake. Commander Shepard will be able to review them and make his choice."

"And if he doesn't like any of them?" Jack asked, likely curious about the other side of the coin.

"Then I will draft a new set of possible missions different enough from the first five to hopefully meet with his approval," he replied, truly hoping that Shepard didn't prove to be difficult to get along with. "With a little luck, if they don't file any complaints or you manage to acquire some technology from them, that'll be enough to get things set straight. Dismissed."

With that SG1 dispersed, no doubt to prepare for their new assignment, or at least three of them would be. Jack, he imagined, would be spending most of his time either playing the 'Mass Effect' game or making a list of all the 'cool' weapons he'd want to try while working with the Normandy's crew. Colonel O'Neill might have been one of the best people he had ever served with but the man could act like such a teenager at times that he made sure that there was a bottle of Tylenol in his desk. He just hoped his second in command's sense of humor and immature behavior didn't ruin what to many, himself included, looked to be the most promising opportunity so far.

With an ally capable of taking on two Goa'uld warships at once with barely a scratch to show for it, they might be able to go from guerilla tactics to a true offensive.

That would certainly bring a smile to his face.

_**In Transit to the Sol System, Tok'Ra Tel'tak, Anise's POV**_

_It is said that to gain much one must risk much,_ she thought as she gazed at the hyperspace corridor visible through the forward windows of the Tel'tak. _I hope that this is true._

It had been less than twenty-four hours since the Tok'ra High Council had finished its deliberations on who would represent their people aboard the Normandy. She had called in every favor she was owed by members of the High Council as well as comrades who possessed substantial influence among their people to ensure that she would be that representative but chance remained. There were four other members of the Tok'ra who possessed the qualifications and standing to be considered for the position, making it harder for her to make sure she was chosen. Each of them had stood before the High Council and presented an argument to convince those listening why they would be the best choice to be assigned to the Normandy. She had held her breath for the entire hour that she and the other candidates had waited outside the council chambers waiting for their decision.

In the end her effort had been rewarded but she knew that it was too soon to let her guard down. She had bet everything on this one opportunity and therefore she had to do everything she could in order to make the most of it.

Why had she bet everything on the chance to become the Tok'ra representative aboard the Normandy? Simply put, she believed that the ship from the alternate reality would make a far better ally than the SGC technologically and perhaps tactically as well, despite their few numbers. Given that the ship managed to combat two Ha'tak easily, it was her belief that perhaps the Normandy could engage as many as three times that number before requiring reinforcements. When added to the stealth systems and ground vehicle, the opportunities to strike against the Goa'uld system lords in ways the enemy did not foresee. While the sensors of the Tel'tak had indeed detected them, she believed it might be possible to modify the ship's systems to eliminate this weakness. If this proved true, then a well-conceived flight plan could allow them to enter a system controlled by the enemy undetected until it was too late. If the modifications to the existing systems proved insufficient, then perhaps the High Council could be persuaded to provide a cloaking device from one of the stealth Tel'taks.

And these were only the advantages she could perceive based on what limited information their guide aboard the vessel had seen fit to give them.

If she was right, there could be many more things aboard Shepard's vessel that could prove invaluable in the struggle against the System Lords. While she did not believe that she would lose her position as a respected scientist should she fail in her task, they would no longer look favorably upon her nor trust her with matters of importance. It would likely take her another twenty years of diligent and fruitful work to regain her current standing and she did NOT wish to wait that long. While she, like all Tok'ra, was loyal to their cause, she had ambitions that would not allow her to remain a member of the rank and file forever. It was indeed her dream to earn a place not only on the High Council, but also a place in the history of their people that would endure a thousand years, if not longer. Her time as a member of the Tok'ra might have taught her a degree of patience but even that had limits, all of which would be met if she failed in this assignment.

Therefore she would NOT fail and would take whatever steps necessary in order to make that a reality.

The first step she'd already taken by accessing the storehouse of knowledge the Tok'ra possessed and looking for any mention of advanced technology, portals or alternate dimensions. There wasn't a whole lot on the last topic and, as far as portals were concerned, she'd had to be extra careful to weed out anything that was likely a stargate, but still it was better than nothing. With this she would be giving the crew of the Normandy much more than what she imagined the SGC could, thus putting herself above them in terms of usefulness.

The next step had been to bring with her a selection of Goa'uld weaponry for the Normandy to examine as well as information on the various threats that existed in the galaxy, with special focus on the system lords. This would not only help in ensuring that the offensive and defensive capabilities of the Tok'ra's potential new ally would be up to the challenge but also give her an idea of what tactics Commander Shepard preferred to use. Was he aggressive? Did he place greater value on strategy and tactics rather than weaponry? Was he reactionary in that he would only attack the Goa'uld System Lords if they did something first to provoke him? Such information would be vital in the eyes of the High Council in determining where best to send the Normandy.

She had one final measure in mind for ensuring the success of her assignment but it would have to wait until she'd managed to gather the necessary information. After all, she could not begin to get closer to Commander Shepard until she knew his interests or if he had a lover already.

_I thought you preferred, Doctor Jackson._ Freya thought from within their mind.

_Doctor Jackson is indeed my preference since his knowledge of languages and ancient cultures is most impressive,_ she thought with perfect bluntness. _However you know as well as I do there is too much riding on my assignment to the Normandy not to explore this possibility. If I can establish a personal and perhaps intimate connection with Commander Shepard, I will be able to influence him and thereby ensure he sees both us as well as the Tok'ra in a positive light._

_And if you fail, what little trust they might have in you now will be destroyed._ Freya thought back, pointing out a serious consequence of seducing Commander Shepard.

_That is why I will wait until I know more about him before making any such advances. _she thought back to her host. _Once I have a better idea of what sort of person Shepard is, I will know how he will likely react to my actions._

Indeed, it wasn't like she was going to get him alone in his room and forcibly demonstrate her knowledge of pleasuring on him or anything of the sort. This was an assignment of great importance and therefore she would use her superior intellect to devise the proper method of achieving her goals in the shortest amount of time possible.

If Commander Shepard turned out to be the sort of man who could be manipulated through sex… well, she wasn't totally against that route to success.

_I have a bad feeling about this._ Freya thought before falling silent.

_**Normandy SR-2, In Orbit on the Dark Side of the Moon, The End of the One Week Deadline**_

_**Afternoon Colorado Springs Local Time, Xander's POV**_

"Tok'ra shuttle has left the Earth's gravity well." Oz 'Joker' Osborne reported from his place in the cockpit. "ETA five minutes."

"Alright. Let's review the situation before they get here," he said to those arrayed around the conference table. "As of this moment neither Willow or Giles have been able to figure out a way to turn us back to normal and, based on my last talk with them, that's not likely to change within the next month."

"To hear Red going on, I'd put it closer to six months before we hear anything good." Faith said with words that were hers but body language that was definitely Miranda's.

"As a result we're gonna have to put on a show for the SGC and the aliens because there's no way we can hide something the size of the Normandy. Most of you already know the song and dance I gave them about dimensional displacement and that's what we're sticking to. Make sure everyone knows it and sticks to it, otherwise the reps will smell something fishy's going on. Until Willow and Giles come up with a solution, we'll be doing what we can to help both the SGC and the Tok'ra fight these Goa'uld system lords while storing intel for our own databases after everything's back to normal."

"What for?" Buffy asked, sounding a bit put out. "Once the Normandy's gone it'll be back to demons, vamps and warlocks for us. Why would we need to know about aliens and stuff?"

"Because if aliens exist then it's likely aliens visiting Earth and probing people is also a possibility. Sure, we can just deal with them the same way we do most demons but what if we start an intergalactic war because we offed the wrong E.T?" he asked rhetorically, hoping his friend would clue in. "I don't know about you but I'd rather not find out the hard way what some alien's Death Star looks like when it fires from orbit."

"The Death Star isn't real, Xander!" Buffy protested with a bit of incredulity.

"You probably thought the same thing about aliens a month ago but look at you now." he countered, not losing his cool.

Needless to say the blonde Slayer turned Slayer-thief had nothing to say to that.

"Moving along… once the reps are onboard, EDI and Buffy will keep an eye on them to make sure they don't try anything sneaky. That goes double if they're in the armory, lab and engine room," he said, looking at each of the assembled people in the eyes. "If half the evil government and alien movies are right, they'll try to get off the Normandy with weapons, tech or information. Hell, if they're ambitious they might try to sabotage the ship so that they can take it for themselves. So until we get a better idea of what kind of people they are, we keep a sharp eye or optic on them at all times."

"Understood, Commander." EDI said through the speakers in the room.

"As for any 'missions' they might want our help in, we'll judge them on a case-by-case basis," he said, finishing up the summary. "If while you're on these missions things turn out not to be as advertised, use your own judgment on what to do, preferably something that doesn't involve injury or death. Questions?"

"What'll we do about fuel?" Dawn asked from her position on the opposite side of the table. "We might have a full tank now but it can only go down from here."

"Based on scans of the Tok'ra shuttle, EDI believes that their range is comparable to the Normandy's." he replied turning to look at the newly-minted Asari. "When they request our help on a mission, we'll find out where they are on the galaxy map and try to choose the ones that'll keep fuel consumption to a minimum. If that turns out not to be possible then we'll either have to consider alternative fuel or see how dangerous it'd be to give the SGC the knowledge to make it for us."

"Isn't that dangerous?" Robin asked, sounding like he wasn't in favor of it.

"Not really. They use a similar combo for fuel in most rockets today so it won't be that big a leap," he replied, dismissing the concern.

"Commander Shepard is correct," EDI said, putting in her own opinion. "The fuel used by the Normandy is in many ways a more refined form of the fuel used by the main aerospace organizations of current day Earth. By my estimates they will reach a fuel identical to our own in less than fifty years."

This seemed to calm the man with the memories of Jacob Taylor a bit so he looked about the room to see if anyone else had a question. When nothing was said, he concluded that everyone knew what they wanted to know and they could let the curtain go up without delay.

"Then… places, people! The opening Act is about to begin!" he said as he strode to the door on his way to the airlock so he could greet the reps in person.

He could hear the others falling into step behind him and for the tenth time he seriously hoped that everyone was right to follow his lead on this. Despite all the experience he'd acquired since hooking up with Buffy and the new memories he had of three separate versions of Commander Shepard, he still wasn't sure he had what it took to be leading the way. That was something Giles or Willow or even Buffy could do if she had to in a pinch. Him? He was good at being the X.O or division leader but he'd never before tried to tackle anything more important than that and the possibility that he'd screw this up scared him quite a bit. Still, no one had tried to take command away from him or even put forth the idea that someone else other than him should be in charge, so he was stuck with the job.

"You'll do fine," Dawn said, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder as they walked. "You might not know it but you're a good man, Xander. You've managed to make it this far without any powers, magic or obscure knowledge. It might not be N7 training but I think that it comes pretty damn close."

"She's right, Xan," Buffy said to his left with her hood concealing half her face in shadow. "You've held the line with nothing other than your determination and willingness to put yourself on the line for others. Sounds a lot like Commander Shepard if you ask me."

"Let's hope that God, the PTB and Murphy agree with you two," he said as he stepped onto the walkway that led to the cockpit.

Within moments Buffy, Dawn and he were standing in front of the airlock waiting for the Tok'ra shuttle to dock and the reps to come aboard. He'd been a bit wary of letting Dawn be seen but accepted that he wouldn't be able to keep either her or Andrew hidden forever, so he was willing to test the waters with one before revealing the other. He knew that the former blonde man was already down in the port cargo room both out of choice and because that was where Grunt had lived during his time on the Normandy. In the time since the spell had been broken he hadn't had all that much contact with the former geek, not wanting to dump bad blood on top of whatever being changed into a Krogan had done to his mind. The people of Tuchanka were quite blunt when it came to letting others know of their 'displeasure' and he had no desire to spend the next few weeks in the med-bay being pumped full of medi-gel.

He knew he'd have to resolve things between him and Andrew sooner or later but at the moment he was perfectly fine with later so long as it didn't cause problems during the missions.

"Decontamination complete." EDI declared before the airlock opened to reveal SG-1 and the Tok'ra Anise.

They'd been contacted an hour ago by the SGC and informed of who'd been selected as representatives of the relevant parties. He'd been a little surprised at the SGC choosing four people to represent them but in the end it was probably a good thing since it'd keep the number of people who got a good look at mass effect tech and the Normandy to a minimum. The limited tour that Faith had given them might have given them a hint of what was on the ship but it was the equivalent of him seeing a nuclear reactor and being told it made the lights in his house go on. They might know what the various devices could do but they had no idea how they worked or how to replicate them on their own worlds. Eventually enough trust might be built up that he'd authorize giving them more details but, until that time, both the reps from Earth and the one from the Tok'ra would only be told the bare minimum.

"Colonel O'Neill, Major Carter, Doctor Jackson, Teal'c, Anise… welcome aboard." he said, deciding to make it official and everything. "Here's hoping that this is the beginning of a long and rewarding relationship."

"Likewise Commander, Shepard." Anise said in the distorted voice that she sometimes used.

"Now we don't exactly have a lot of extra space on board the Normandy but we've done what we can to give each representative party their own room," he said as he gestured that they should follow him. "It's not as fancy as a high price penthouse on Illium but this is a military ship for the most part."

"Oh, we've slept in worse," Colonel O'Neill said with a smile. "As long as it's better than a concrete slab and a damp basement, we'll be fine."

"It's not quite as bad as that," he said with his usual lopsided grin. "Mostly they're bunk beds and cots, with a table or two added on."

"It will be satisfactory," Teal'c stated in a tone that was so restrained so as to barely have a spark of emotion in it.

A few minutes later they were all in the elevator descending to deck three, where the crew quarters were located. It'd taken a bit of juggling and squeezing to get two rooms emptied for the reps but it was necessary in order to control what the five newcomers both saw and heard. If he'd put them in the same room with the crew there was a chance that unauthorized info might slip through loose lips both in terms of mass effect technology and the Slayer Organization. While everyone had been told not to let the proverbial cat be let out of the equally proverbial bag, he knew that people occasionally suffered malfunctions with their brain to mouth filters, especially when they were tired or just waking up.

By keeping them in separate rooms they wouldn't bump into the crew until they were more mentally alert and could keep tabs on what they were saying.

They arrived at the designated rooms, rooms that were next to each other, and after they had deposited their gear inside he decided it was time to show SG1 their housewarming gift. Together they returned to the CIC and, with a single nod to Faith, the cat suit wearing girl went over to the necessary console.

"Now, as you may have noticed, Colonel O'Neill, while we waited for you to make your selection, Miss Lawson had the Normandy pay a visit to each of the planets in the system," he said as he turned to the leader of SG-1. "I imagine you'd like to know why."

"We might be a wee bit curious," Colonel O'Neill said with a look of curiosity in his eyes.

"Well, in anticipation of this day, I decided that a welcoming present for whoever the SGC chose was in order." Images of each planet in the Sol system began to holographically appear. "I asked Miss Lawson to do as detailed a topographical mineral scan as possible for each planet, starting from Mars and going on out. We used them a lot when we needed to gather the raw resources we needed to upgrade the Normandy's systems."

"And that means what in English?" Colonel O'Neill asked, sounding totally clueless.

"Sir, it means that with this information we'll know exactly where and how deep each mineral is!" Major Carter exclaimed, obviously a knowledge addict. "This'll save us both time and money once Earth gets the ability to reliably travel to other planets in the solar system and establish mines there. This is amazing!"

_Too bad Willow's still planet side working on the counter spell,_ he thought with a smile as he imagined the two of them talking science to each other.

"Sweet," O'Neill said, not sounding nearly as enthusiastic as his second-in-command.

"The Tok'ra have some experience in extracting valuable minerals from a planet," Anise said, sounding half as interested as Carter. "I will mention this to the Tok'ra High Council the next time I speak with them. I am sure that, in exchange for a portion of the extracted minerals, they will have little reason to deny the SGC assistance."

"Sounds like a plan," he said glad to see the two parties getting along with each other.

"We also brought something. It's not exactly a gift but we thought you'd like to have a map so you'd know where to go." Major Carter said as she handed him a small portable hard drive. "This contains a complete map of the stargate network, at least what we've charted so far, and information on the current domains of the system lords we've encountered so far."

"Well, this'll certainly be useful," he said as he took the HD and set it down next to his personal terminal. "Does it have a wireless option?"

"Yes, of course." Carter said, nodding her head in the affirmative.

"EDI? Transfer the files."

Surprisingly enough it took less than a minute to complete the transfer and he could tell that the blonde major hadn't expected it to be so fast. While for the most part this was good, he could only imagine how many questions the woman would produce once she had the opportunity to ask them.

"Commander, I believe we may have a problem." EDI said, managing to affect a worried tone.

"What is it, EDI?" he asked, wondering what the problem could be.

"I have compared the map of this dimension's galaxy to our own and I believe we have severely underestimated the range of the Tok'ra shuttle." EDI replied before bringing up the galaxy map, highlighting both the locations of the stargates and the layout of the system lord empires.

To say that even the closest destination was WAY outside their maximum FTL range would be something of an understatement.

_O-kay… plan B then._

_**Dawn's POV**_

"Is there a problem?" Doctor Jackson asked, looking between her and Xander.

"When we saw the Tok'ra shuttle leave for the first time, we assumed that its range was similar to our own Kodiak shuttle." she replied before bringing up an image of the Horse Head Nebula. "In our dimension a shuttle's range is usually limited to travelling from Pax to Fortuna and back before it needs refueling."

Then she brought up the galaxy map and highlighted the Sol system.

"Anise? Could you show me what is the farthest your shuttle could travel in one day at maximum speed?" she asked before bringing up the same map on the terminal.

It took a bit of doing but eventually between the two of them an accurate end point was highlighted both on the terminal's screen and on the holographic galaxy map.

"That is the farthest a Tok'ra Tel'tak could travel in one of your days." Anise said, stepping back from the terminal.

_Damn! We really underestimated them,_ she thought realizing that there was no way the Normandy could make the same trip with their current fuel capacity.

"I take it you couldn't do the same?" Colonel O'Neill asked, sounding a little worried.

"No. That's one of the reasons why the mass relays were the main source of intergalactic travel," she replied with a bit of concern. "To us there was no other way to get from cluster to nebula."

"Then I guess we have a problem," Carter stated, sounding disappointed that the Normandy wouldn't be quite so useful against the Goa'uld.

"Not necessarily," Xander said, sounding like he had hope before opening a connection to the cockpit. "Joker? Set course for Pluto. Best speed."

_So he's really going to do it,_ she thought, no doubt mirroring what the others were thinking. _Here's hoping that only the mass relays exist in this dimension or else things are going to get nasty._

"Pluto? What's on Pluto?" Doctor Jackson asked, sounding like he didn't even have a theory about what they'd find.

"Our best, last hope for doing more than just being security guards for the Sol system." Xander replied with a tiny grin on his face.

She caught the reference to 'Babylon 5' but, from what she could see, it didn't look like any member of SG-1 recognized it so on the inside she breathed a sigh of relief. She'd have to have a word with the dear commander when they had a moment of privacy because, while being familiar with the show could be explained away by a like of old Earth vids, it wouldn't work forever. Sooner or later one of them would begin to wonder why someone from the future and another dimension would know so much about contemporary sci-fi. They'd wonder and they wouldn't buy some of the on the spot excuses Xander would no doubt come up with. If they were going to hold out until Giles and Willow managed to cast the counter spell to get them all back to normal, they needed to keep the 'advanced and powerful people from the future' front going. The second that either the SGC or the Tok'ra figured out that they were just a group of locals who stumbled upon all of this thanks to the screwy magic cast by Posey, the strength of their position would be greatly reduced.

The SGC, being attached to the military, might even decide to take advantage of the weakness to try and seize the Normandy.

Not that they'd get very far since, with EDI unshackled, she could not only counter any hacking attempt but operate all the ship's systems on her own. If the artificial intelligence could clear a ship of Collectors when the whole place was being overrun, then the spirit of the ship could certainly deal with a group of primitive soldiers two hundred years behind tech-wise wouldn't be a problem.

It was about five minutes before they arrived at Pluto and she could tell that those not in the know really did want to know why they were there.

Fortunately Xander decided not to make them squirm a bit by keeping the answer to himself.

"When Miss Lawson conducted her scan of the planets, she also decided to see if there were any sort of similarities between our dimension and yours," Xander explained as they settled into orbit around Pluto. "The first thing checked was whether or not there were any Prothean ruins on Mars. Scans were conducted of the same planetary co-ordinates where the outpost was found in our dimension but nothing was found and nothing was found when the rest of the planet was scanned. Naturally we were a little disappointed that we didn't find anything on Mars but there was one more place within our reach that we could take a look at."

"Pluto?" Doctor Jackson asked, making a tentative connection.

"Actually what we wanted a look at is in orbit around Pluto," Xander replied with a smile as he used his private terminal to bring up a holographic image of Charon. "Specifically the moon Charon."

"You don't mean…?" Colonel O'Neill asked, the light in his eyes making it clear a light bulb had flicked on inside his head.

"Yep, I do." Xander replied before typing a command that showed all present what lay beneath the ice.

In the blink of an eye the hologram of Charon went from a mere surface representation to a more sliced apple appearance, showing the mass relay buried deep within the ice.

"Now, we don't know whether or not this is a mass relay that's native to this reality or if it got brought over from another dimension like us, but sensors show it to be operational yet dormant." Xander explained as data from the device scrolled up next to its image. "Not many people know how to activate a dormant mass relay due to the Citadel Council's prohibition against doing so, but fortunately EDI has all the information needed to do so. With only an hour of warm up time we could be on our way to wherever our first mission takes us."

"But won't that destroy Charon as it is now?" Jack O'Neill asked, sounding like he just barely had his feet under him still. "People back home might just notice that."

"Not really. While the right telescopes would know if it was destroyed, the light that the eezo core gives off should keep that from happening." Xander replied, not sounding all that worried. "After all, I remember going to my grandfather's place and looking through his old telescope once. All I could make out of Pluto was a glowing sphere. So long as the glow stays and no one gets a closer look, they'll probably mistake the eezo core's light for Charon."

"Carter?" O'Neill asked his second in command.

"Well, he's not wrong about the clarity of the images of Pluto and Charon," Major Carter replied after a moment's thought. "Even the Hubble telescope can't get more than two points of light. If the 'eezo core' of the mass relay is really bright enough, then no one but us and those capable of space travel would know the truth."

"Then let's fire the oversized tuning fork up," the colonel said with an easy going manner that reminded her of Xander.

Two Xanders.

The universe must've shuddered the day Xander was born.

"You heard the man, EDI," Xander said with authority in his voice. "Begin bringing the Charon relay online."

"Acknowledged, Shepard." EDI stated in her usual professional tone. "Beginning mass relay start up sequence. Would you like me to utilize the external cameras so that the representatives may watch?"

"Interested?" Xander asked, looking first at SG1 and then at Anise.

_**Half an Hour Later, Deck Three, Faith 'Miranda' LeHane's Office**_

_**Faith's POV**_

_I hope we get some action on this mission,_ she thought as she continued going over the last few status reports from the various sections of the ship. _This bureaucratic bullshit is seriously chaffing my ass._

Still, it gave her something to focus on and that kept the other parts she'd inherited from 'ice queen' Lawson in the back of her mind. It was impossible to keep all that shit from crawling up the surface completely but she found that if she went all the way with one, she could keep the rest out of the spotlight. So she chose the thing that'd take up the most processing power in her brain and that turned out to be the skills of a glorified administrator. As it turned out, keeping a ship running smoothly was a lot harder and a lot more boring than TV made it out to be. There were reports on top of records on top of status updates that changed hands no less than half a dozen times and ninety percent of them couldn't be ignored no matter how much she might want to. The fact that they were complicated in spots meant she couldn't just skim them because, in order to understand them, she had to tap into the info from Lawson. That required some serious zen focus so she'd get only what she wanted without the rest popping up.

_Giving me a fuckin' headache!_ she thought as she leaned back in her seat to take a break.

She wondered for a moment what kind of mission they'd be sent on and what kind of freaky aliens existed in this dimension. Were they anything like the ones from the Mass Effect 'verse? Or would they be seriously gross? As long as they didn't gush slime all over her when she shot'em, everything'd be five by five.

It was as her thoughts continued on the future that she thought of something that hadn't come up until then or during the big reveal for the reps that she'd eavesdropped on.

While they had confirmed the presence and functionality of the Charon relay, that did not mean that there were mass relays elsewhere for them to use. One relay did not a network make, after all, and without another one at their destination they'd be trapped in whatever system their first mission was located in. Considering the fact that she didn't much want to end up trapped in the middle of nowhere with supplies decreasing by the day, she chose to act.

"EDI? Is the communications hardware in the relay online?" she asked the A.I, who was always listening in to one degree or another.

"It is, Miss Lehane." EDI replied promptly.

"Then I want you to start going through the list of known mass relays. Try and establish a comm link with each of the relays one at a time," she said as a plan formed in her mind. "We need to see just how many relays exist in this reality before we start thinking about criss-crossing the galaxy. Will you be able to tell if a relay is there even if it's dormant?"

"Yes. Only if a mass relay is completely shut down or destroyed would I be unable to interface with it." EDI replied in her usual manner.

"Do it then," she ordered, hoping that the bit of good luck that the Charon relay turned out to be didn't go sour on them.

"It will take twenty-five minutes to finish determining the status of all the known mass relays." EDI said, informing her of how long the check will take.

"Good," she said before her stomach informed her that she hadn't eaten in a couple of hours. "Notify me when it's done. Time for a snack."

"Understood," EDI said presumably before she stopped actively monitoring her.

Getting out of her chair she exited her office/bedroom and made her way to the kitchen area to put together a foot long sub out of what provisions poofed into existence along with the ship. It wasn't much since, when both Normandy's had been designed, it had never occurred to their creators that there wouldn't be a port they could pull into in order to resupply. That being the case, she knew she should probably keep her snack to a sandwich or even half of one but, despite all the other changes she'd undergone, she was still a Slayer. That meant her appetite was still the same as it'd been before this whole fuckin' mess had started, so whether she liked it or not she had a large tank that needed filling.

Once she had her sub sandwich made, she went to the nearest of the large tables in the area and sat down to eat. She'd hoped to have a relaxing thirty minutes until the mass relay but she heard the sound of approaching footsteps, looked up and saw Major Carter. On the outside she kept the ice queen impassive look on her face, slipping into it like a comfortable pair of shoes, but on the inside she girded herself for a Q&amp;A session. The moment she'd seen the blonde, she'd known that she was looking at an egghead who loved learning things just as much as Red did. As a result she'd already made sure that all files of a sensitive nature required a crew member's Cerberus login information before it could be accessed. Considering that Cerberus had tech matching or surpassing the Council races, she doubted that the army brainiac would be able to hack her way through it.

As for this direct approach Carter was taking now… she was ready.

"Miss Lawson? I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions." Carter said as she sat down on the opposite side of the table.

"You may but I can't promise I'll answer all of them," she said after swallowing a bite of her sub. "Security reasons as I'm sure you understand."

"Of course," Carter said acknowledging that some things would have to stay secret. "I was just wondering what Cerberus is. I've heard some members of the crew mention the name and I understand that it's an organization but I don't know what it is."

_Figures she'd pull the pin on one of the badass grenade topics,_ she thought. "Cerberus is an organization that many on this ship, with the exception of Shepard and a few other specialists, belonged to up until our assault on the Collector's central headquarters. It is at its base a human-survivalist paramilitary group that believes that humanity deserved a greater say in galactic affairs than the Systems Alliance currently possesses."

"What do you mean?" Carter asked, looking for further clarification.

"It's been almost thirty years since humanity first had contact with the Turians and, while the Alliance has made some progress in expanding the human race's influence, not everyone was satisfied. A lot felt that the other races were being condescending and at times insulting towards humans, both with words as well as policies. Others believed that this was indicative of the path that all the alien races would take and that it'd only get worse as time passed. With the Systems Alliance hindered by shortsighted laws and public opinion, one man believed that humanity needed an organization that would prioritize the advancement of humanity by any means necessary. Thus Cerberus was born."

"A bit of a pessimistic view and dangerous," Carter stated, sounding like she'd be employing the standard Alliance response to Cerberus soon enough.

"Perhaps, but in some cases it's necessary," she said, honestly stating her opinion. "The Citadel races look down on us simply because we only discovered mass effect technology and began using the mass relays less than a century ago. From the way they behave, a race's age is determined by hold long that race has both known of it and the degree to which it has been mastered. They completely ignore every other aspect of humanity that in many ways is on par with the Asari, the Turians and the Salarians. The Asari view humanity as a problem child that needs to eat its vegetables and finish its homework. The Turians view our race as a reckless and undisciplined bunch that needs to be put in its place. The Salarians… well, they're geeks in every sense of the word so they probably think we need tutors in everything.

"With all this, is it any wonder that some think we should stop submitting to the 'wisdom' of the alien races and forge our own path?" she asked rhetorically before waiting to see what Carter would say.

"I'll admit SG1's own experience with advanced races has been frustrating but I haven't been able to completely refute their opinions of humanity." Carter said, definitely erring on the side of caution. "We're still divided by religion, culture, ideals and countries. There are even elements of the United States government and military that don't exactly represent the best humanity has to offer."

"Yes, but at the time we first encountered the Turians, the Systems Alliance had been in existence for eight years and was for the most part stable. Oh, there were a few countries that weren't in the top eighteen that were displeased with the choices being made and the directions Earth was being taken, but nothing serious," she said, again using Miranda's knowledge to support her own position. "I would think that having unified our planet for eight years and almost completely catching up to them in terms of understanding mass effect technology would be enough to put us on equal terms with the Citadel races. However they do not share my opinion."

"So Cerberus disregards Citadel and Alliance law to advance humanity by any means necessary?" Carter asked, voicing her summation for her own reasons. "Sounds like a terrorist group to me."

"Both the Alliance and the Citadel Council view Cerberus as a terrorist organization but for a long time I thought that they were just spineless politicians and condescending aliens. I wanted humanity to be more assertive, to stand on its own two feet, and prove to the rest of the galaxy that we wouldn't be pushed around or dictated to," she said, a little too much of Miranda seeping through so she clamped down for a moment before continuing. "However, during my time with Commander Shepard and seeing the scope of the threat bearing down on us, I came to realize that humanity didn't need to sacrifice its honor, its soul, to become strong. I suspect that once I return 'home' that Cerberus and I will be parting ways. Hopefully I'll live long enough to come to the conclusion that I made the right choice."

"'Live long enough'?" Carter asked, with her concern level shooting up. "You think they'll kill you for leaving?"

"I am an officer in Cerberus. A highly ranked officer that the Illusive Man trusts to handle important projects and assignments," she replied, pointing out the seriousness of her supposed situation. "That means that I have in my head information and secrets that could hurt Cerberus significantly if they fell into the wrong hands. The Illusive Man will do anything and everything up to and including killing me before I can divulge what I know to anyone."

"He won't simply trust that you'll keep the information to yourself? I mean, if you know secrets then I'm willing to bet you were involved with them too." Carter said, trying to comprehend what she was being told. "There'd be a good chance that you'd face charges if the truth ever got out, right?"

"The Illusive Man isn't known for taking chances with Cerberus' future, Major Carter," she said with a hint of 'I am speaking to a naïve child' in her voice. "The only people allowed to walk out of Cerberus are those who know nothing of consequence, with both the Illusive Man AND Alliance Intelligence knowing it."

True, if Miranda's memories could be trusted, then the Reaper invasion could easily happen within one year or less and that could distract the Illusive Man enough that eliminating the woman would be regulated to a secondary priority. Not that she was Miranda or anything but she figured if the whole alternate reality thing worked like it did on all those sci-fi shows some of the newbie Slayers watched, then Miranda Lawson really did exist somewhere in the multi-verse. If that was the case then she hoped that wherever her 'sister' was, that luck stayed on her side and kept her safe even in the face of the Reapers.

"With luck, though, the Reapers inevitable arrival will give him bigger things to worry about," she said, summing up what her thoughts were to Major Carter.

"How soon are you expecting them?" Carter asked with contemplative interest.

"Based on Commander Shepard's report on his mission to the Bahak system, I would wager that they'll arrive at the next closest mass relay within a year or so. After that… they'll be able to spread out to every corner of the Milky Way galaxy within days."

There was silence after this as the Major no doubt tried to picture what an invasion of ships like Sovereign would be like but it was not something easily conceived by the human mind.

"If there's anything we can do to help… just ask." Major Carter asked with the utmost seriousness.

"I appreciate the sentiment, Major, but unless you have access to a device that can emit energy on a galaxy wide scale capable of frying the internal workings of a Reaper… I won't hold my breath." It almost laughable that current day tech could do anything to help.

It was harsh but it was also true.

_**Normandy SR-2, Thirty Minutes Later, Deck Two: Combat Information Center, **_

_**Oz 'Joker' Osborne's POV**_

"Your bio-signs indicate a in a state of significant excitement, Mister Osborne." EDI said with her floating blue sphere of light hovering over a nearby plate of black. "I take it that you are looking forward to using the Charon relay."

"Yep. Really looking forward to seeing what's out there," he said as he waited for Xander to give him a destination. "See how I stack up against the best in the galaxy."

"There is no indication that there are any other space travelling race aside from the Goa'uld," EDI said, pointing out a potential flaw in his ambition. "If Zeus' attack is typical of their skill and tactics, it is doubtful that you would receive much of a challenge."

"I dunno. If they make ships the size of shuttles then they gotta have fighters, right?" he asked as he considered the A.I's point. "Really fast maneuverable fighters that'll make me actually work for my paycheck."

"I was not aware you received monetary compensation for piloting the Normandy." EDI said, managing to sound a bit surprised.

"Well, I'm not, but I totally should be," he said, stumbling over the flaw that had been pointed out. "Without me piloting, everyone else is pretty much screwed."

While some might think this to be a statement of arrogance, it was actually pretty close to the truth. Thanks to Jeff Moreau's memories and skills, he felt confident that he could wipe the floor with just about any other pilot in the galaxy, especially if they all maneuvered like the two Goa'uld cruisers. GOD! He could out fly that thing in the Kodiak for crying out loud! The only thing that was respectable about the pyramid shaped vessels was their firepower but, thankfully, whatever targeting system was tied to their guns was too slow to keep up with the Normandy. If the targeting was improved and a heavy enough volley of fire was sent their way, THEN they might be a little tough to handle but not as they were at the moment.

"All senior officers and representatives to the briefing room." Xander's voice through the speakers embedded into the wall. "The Charon relay has finished warming up so it's time to get down to business."

"Open a comm. channel to the briefing room, EDI," he said as he prepped navigation to receive co-ordinates. "I want to listen in on this."

"Acknowledged," EDI said before a new holo-screen was added to the usual batch with audio coming from it.

It was only a couple of minutes before he scattered sounds of people entering the briefing room came to an end but, when it did, Xander was, as expected, the one to get things going.

"As of two minutes ago the Charon relay finished its warm up cycle," Xander said in a way that made it easy to imagine what he was doing. "So the time has come to go on our first mission and I'm told that the SGC has already lined up a list of possibilities. Colonel?"

"First up is to investigate a device on Velona that SG-3 found," O'Neill said in an informal manner. "The surrounding area is made of numerous demolished buildings with no signs of people having lived there anytime recently. The device is also much more advanced than the locals likely were so we're operating under the assumption that they didn't make it. The mission objective will be to study the device, determine its purpose and whether or not it could be used to help us against the Goa'uld."

"So basically it's a scientific expedition?" Faith asked, sounding slightly unimpressed.

"It was Major General Hammond's hope that your advanced technology might expedite the mission or at least keep us from shooting ourselves in the foot with it." Colonel O'Neill explained, sounding like he wasn't crazy about the mission either.

"The help we'd be able to provide wouldn't be much better than your own," Dawn pointed out as diplomatically as possible. "Depending on how different this device is from mass effect technology, we might not be able to discern its purpose."

"We'll still stand a better chance of figuring out with you then without you." Carter said, sounding like she'd be interested in the mission.

"What's option number two?" Kasumi asked, sounding like she'd be staying on the Normandy if they went with option one.

"There's a world designated P29-519 where Tok'ra intelligence suggests a Goa'uld weapons R&amp;D compound is set up," Colonel O'Neill replied, the sound of paper moving coming over the audio connection. "No positive ID on which snakehead is in charge since there isn't any one type of Jaffa involved according to the intel. The only thing they are sure about is that they have confirmed sightings of unidentified tech in their possession and at least one prototype that managed to blow a hole clean through one of their people."

"Indeed I am familiar with that particular encounter," Anise said with her weird, distorted voice. "The prototype was larger than a T-E-R but smaller than a standard staff weapon. It fired a single energy burst at great speed, taking our operatives completely by surprise. It is unlike anything we have encountered before. Fortunately one of the surviving members of that team managed to see the address of the world the Jaffa input into the stargate and return to us. However the Tok'ra High Council is unwilling to commit resources to directly investigate the matter until more information can be gathered on the compound and the Goa'uld in command of it."

"Yep. Basically we'd be doing all the heavy lifting while they reap the benefits without scraping a single knee." O'Neill said, sounding a lot like Shepard, both Xander and the fictional one, after dealing with the Citadel Council.

"You and the SGC are well aware that, unlike you, we cannot so readily replenish our numbers." Anise said somewhat defensively. "Since the time when Egeria was taken from us, there have been no new Tok'ra symbiotes and only a rare Goa'uld that has seen the wrongness of its ways. If the Tok'ra are to survive to see the end of the system lords, we must measure every action we take carefully to minimize our losses whenever we can."

"Let's stay on topic here, people," Xander said, obviously not wanting a shouting match to get started. "We all have to work together so let's keep the bickering to our off duty hours. Anise? While that one weapon sounds impressive, that's not necessarily enough to indicate a weapons R&amp;D base. Have the Tok'ra seen or heard anything else suspicious involving the planet in question?"

"Nothing confirmed. There have been reports of disturbances on worlds ruled by various system lords, one of which was thought to be a weapons development planet, but Tok'ra agents have yet to confirm this." Anise replied, sounding like she wouldn't give the reports credibility until proof was found.

"So do the SGC and Tok'ra want the place destroyed or taken?" Xander asked, sounding like he might be willing to go with this mission.

"You're willing to try and take it?" Doctor Jackson asked with a bit of surprise.

"I'd prefer to since, along with the prototypes, we might come across information on who owns the place and if they have any other compounds someplace else." Xander replied, laying out his reasoning. "It'll all depend on how strong the defenses are on this compound. If I think we can take it without unnecessary risk, we will, otherwise the Normandy will hit it from orbit."

"A reasonable outlook." Teal'c said in his usual deadpan manner.

"Then it sounds like we have our mission," Xander said with resolve in his tone. "Can you give us the co-ordinates of the R&amp;D world?"

"Certainly," Anise replied before a set of co-ordinates appeared on a new screen next to the one connecting him to the briefing room.

"Joker, set course for these co-ordinates," Xander ordered without opening a new comm. connection.

"Aye, aye, Commmander," he said as he matched the co-ordinates to location of a mass relay closest to them.

With that information in front of him, he turned the ship towards the Charon mass relay.

"Initiating transmission sequence," he announced over the comm. connection to the briefing room. "Calculating transit mass and destination. The relay is hot. Acquiring approach vector. All stations secure for transit. The board is green. Approach run has begun."

Seeing the massive neon blue energy ball that made up the center of the relay's eezo core, he couldn't help but feel a bit excited at what was about to happen. Sure, he had Joker's memories of going through mass relays dozens of times over but this would be HIS first time and so there was considerable anticipation going on.

"Hitting the relay in three…two…one…" he said as a bolt of energy from the relay began wrapping itself around the ship and interacting with the necessary systems.

Then, in the blink of an eye, normal space vanished, replaced by the wavy blue ethereal corridor of energy.

"Thrusters… check. Navigation… check. Internal emissions sync engaged. All systems online," he said as he went through the checklist that was mandatory after entering the corridor. "Drift… just under fifteen hundred K."

"Good. ETA to the Eagle Nebula?" Xander asked, no doubt for the benefit of the reps.

"A little under three hours."

"Good. Plenty of time for coming up with a basic plan." Xander said before taking on an amused tone. "And Joker? Next time you want to know what's going on in a briefing, feel free to put the Normandy on auto-pilot and join us."

"And get out of this comfy leather seat? Please!" he said, being only half truthful in his response.

"Talk to you later, Joker." Xander said with a smile almost certainly on his face.

The connection was severed, leaving him to his own devices once more and, after a bit, he almost wished that he'd brought his guitar on board with him. Sure, as the pilot he had to keep an eye on the navigation readouts and make the occasional adjustment to make sure they didn't slide out of line with their destination, but there was a lot of free time in between adjustments.

_I'll ask Willow if she can bring it up next time she comes up, _he thought as he resorted to his the only other distraction he had that could be accessed from his current position.

Joker's archived porn collection.

If anyone asked he'd just say he was comparing it with the memories he'd inherited from the spell.

They'd believe him.

No one EVER suspected guys who spoke as few words as possible with a straight face.

_**Deck One, Captain's Cabin, A Little Under Two Hours Later, Xander's POV**_

_Well, I think I have a grip on the reps now,_ he thought as he leaned back in his chair and gazed at the ship models without really looking at them. _An interesting mix._

Indeed, the planning session for the mission had revealed quite a number of things about the members of SG1 and the Tok'ra representative Anise. Most of it was good and made him believe that they could be trusted up to a certain point, but that didn't mean he'd lift EDI's surveillance on them though. Both parties were likely loyal to their parent groups and therefore would only play nice so long as the interests of those groups were being served. If that ever changed, though, he fully expected both SG1 and Anise to try something to seize as much as they could for their superiors. After all, what was a bargain, made in good faith, compared to the possible gains of advanced military, medicinal and space travel tech two centuries ahead of anything currently available on Earth?

Even if by some chance the reps turned out to be trustworthy, there was no guarantee that their superiors would likewise be trustworthy. The memories he had of the various Commander Shepards had many a case of people both up and down the chain of command having as many different levels of morality as there were colors. Some were among the most honorable and moral people Shepard had ever known while others made him, Shepard, ashamed to be a member of the human race, never mind a member of the Alliance military. Until he could be absolutely certain that he could keep the ship and the crew safe from hostile action from both parties, he'd treat them as 'suspicious guests' while keeping up the polite façade.

"Commander? Doctor Dawn T'Soni is coming up in the elevator and wishes to speak with you." EDI said without any warning. "Shall I allow her entry into your cabin?"

"Yes. From here on out Dawn has full authorization to come up whenever she wants," he replied as he turned away from the model ships. "Same goes for Buffy, Willow, Giles, Faith and Oz. All of the others you'll need to check with me before you let them up."

"Acknowledged. Adjusting privacy settings accordingly," EDI said before presumably terminating the connection to the room's speakers.

It only took a few minutes for Dawn to reach his deck and, after she used the option on the green holographic controls in front of the door to the cabin to activate the chime, he let her know she could enter.

"Well… this brings back memories, sort of." Dawn said as she let her eyes gaze about the room.

_Nuts! Looks like whatever memories she inherited from Liara involved…romance._ he thought as he managed to keep a straight face. _Sure, I'm worse with my multiple sets of Shepard memories, which have me romancing a different lady, but I didn't already have a thing for Dawn before all this happened._

He knew from a logical point of view Dawn Summers was of age, not related to him and a genuine beauty to behold, but his mind just couldn't let go of the memories of babysitting her or the 'little sister of a friend' label. Plus he was fairly sure that if he DID try to make a move on Dawn, her bigger sister would most definitely get in his face about it. Considering she had access to Kasumi Goto's tech and thief skills, he had no doubt she could make his life a living hell if he crossed a certain line.

_Best to move along,_ he thought. "Yeah. Just about every place on the ship gives me an unreal case of déjà vu. I can remember people I've talked to, things that happened and what everything does. Sure, it's been helpful but it's also creeped me out more times than I can count."

"Same here. Still, it has some benefits." she said before reaching out with her right hand.

Before he could even consider asking, a black and blue field of energy manifested around the hand before a second one appeared around a battered old helmet. It rose into the air and flew towards her outstretched hand, allowing her to take hold of it with ease like someone catching a feather as it floated slowly to the ground.

"I've been practicing where and when I can," she explained as she examined the helmet as though comparing it to a memory. "I'm not quite at Liara's level even though I have an echo of her mind in my head. Steps that she took for granted, simple things that were so obvious to her, I overlook without even realizing it. The harder I work at it, though, the more it comes back to me and the easier it gets. Maybe in, say… half a year, I'll be up to her level if I keep at it."

"It'll probably be the same thing with me," he said, remembering some of the things he'd done since boarding the Normandy. "I took a look at some of the weapons in the armory and the ones we had as part of our 'costumes' while I waited for the repair updates our first night here. Some things were clear as day, like I could field strip one and then put it back together, but others were a little more iffy."

"Why do you think that is?" she asked, apparently genuinely curious. "That we can remember some things clear as day but not other things."

"I dunno. Maybe the more recent memories are clear while older ones are more blurry?" he asked haphazardly, as it was hard to figure it out. "Maybe stuff that's more instinctive is missing while stuff Shepard and Liara actually needed to think about left a more solid imprint? You'd probably have to ask an egghead like Giles or Willow about this. I'm just a ground pounder that blows stuff up."

"Don't sell yourself short, Xan," she said, placing an encouraging hand on his shoulder. "I listened to you during the planning of the attack on the compound. It was well thought out, it was insightful and I could tell that even Colonel O'Neill was impressed. You might not be book smart like Giles or magic and tech smart like Willow, but there's a reason you have the respect of just about everyone in the Organization. No one cares more about its mission and the people who've chosen to carry it out than you do. You go above and beyond every time you go on duty. That's something people notice especially after a couple of years."

He knew Dawn was being honest in her point of view but he couldn't quite accept the image of him she was putting forth.

Most of the military smarts he'd used to help plan out the attack on the compound was from his Commander Shepard memories, along with the left over solider stuff from the first Halloween spell. As for him, giving it his all every day or night he was on active duty… he saw that as just the natural thing to do considering what was on the line. Lives, for the most part, but also the planet Earth as a whole. If things literally went to hell because he didn't give it everything he had, then the guilt would be all on him. So he did the best he could no matter what, even if it put him in harms way.

Hence why he had numerous visits to either the nearest major hospital or the branch infirmary every year.

"They also notice a lot of other things I really wished they didn't," he said with a bit of discomfort. "I swear I had no idea that the kitsune youkai consider eating that dish the same as accepting a marriage proposal!"

"Well, considering that the kitsune who offered you the dish was the princess of the skulk of fox youkai, it was kind of hard to ignore," she pointed out with an amused smile on her face. "You're lucky she bought the whole song and dance about wanting to train up a successor before settling down. She might not've let you go otherwise."

"Yeah… and if I don't show up when I said I would, she'll put a bounty on my head," he said, remembering his discussion with the princess well. "She kinda left out whether she added 'dead or alive' to the bounty or not. Here's hoping anyone she sends chooses 'alive' since dead didn't seem to work out for Buffy either time it happened to her."

"Don't worry. If Giles was right at your debriefing, she's probably already forgotten about you." she said with her smile becoming a grin. "While kitsune do occasionally take humans as mates, not many of them are willing to deal with the fact that we don't live as long as they do."

"Yeah… guess it's a bit of a bummer when your wife or husband kick the bucket in what's got to feel like a couple of years to them," he said as his mind recalled the lifespan of an Asari. "Love is supposed to last longer than that. Maybe not eternal, but longer."

"Love is love no matter how long it lasts," she said with passion in her voice. "It is a treasure that is to be seized when it shows itself."

_O-kay! This is the part where I need to cool things down,_ he thought as he got to his feet and moved away.

"What's wrong?" she asked, surprised by his actions.

"Look… Dawn, we're all a little… turned around by what's happened to us," he said, trying to get what he meant out without hurting her feelings. "Knowledge, memories and emotions have been dumped into our minds from other people. It's only… natural that we could get caught up in them without realizing it. But we AREN'T them. I'm not Shepard and you're not Liara. Let's not do something that'll complicate things after we're all back to normal."

"You do know I've always had a crush on you Xan, right?" Dawn asked, not willing to let this go. "So it isn't Liara talking. It's me."

"Correction: you HAD a crush on me. I'm pretty sure that one breathed its last before Sunnydale became a big sinkhole in the ground," he said, countering her words with his own logic.

"Correction: the crush might've lost its enthusiasm since the final battle with the First but at worst it went on life support. With Liara's memories, memories of a Shepard that looked and acted suspiciously like you would, the crush has not only gotten a new lease on life, but I dare say it's one reciprocation away from turning into real love." Dawn said countering his counter with a determined look on her face. "That's not going to change even if Giles and Willow figure out a cure."

_GREAT! The infamous Summers lady stubbornness coming my way,_ he thought as he tried to figure out a decent counter argument. _PERFECT!_

"You do realize that Buffy's not exactly gonna be thrilled by your little change in attitude?" he asked rhetorically, using the only thing he could come up with. "You might be legal and all but that's not gonna matter a whole lot with her. She'll invoke Big Sister rights and make some rather vivid threats to me once she finds out. Hell, for all we know she used Kasumi's cloak tech to sneak up here with you and is preparing to perforate me the second I make one wrong move."

"No need to worry about my sister," Dawn scoffed, not worried in the least. "She's in the Port Observation room trying to use some of the meditation techniques Giles taught her to get a grip on her inner-klepto."

"You eyeball her there yourself or did you check via the cameras? You do know that Kasumi could mess with security cameras pretty easily?" he asked, straining to keep his 'shield' in front of him.

"I eyeballed her," she replied with a slight roll of her eyes. "C'mon, Xan! I was pretty damn smart before I got my Liara download. I think I know enough to be careful around my sister and her Kasumi download. Besides, when it comes to a fight between biotics and thief tech, always bet on the former."

_Great! Her new powers have gone straight to her blue tentacled head!_ he thought as he came to the conclusion that it wasn't the Slayer essence that made women go all 'me superior, you inferior'. _Better pop her bubble before it gets too big._

"Biotics need a visible target to be effective. Sure, you can start tossing mass effect fields in all directions, hoping to get lucky, but considering the speed and agility, Buffy has she could dodge your precision shots without a lot of difficulty," he said calmly and with respect. "You try omni-directional and you'll do as much damage to the ship as you would your sister, plus you'll tire out quicker. Don't get cocky just because you have a few new tricks up your sleeve."

"Yes sir!" she declared with a somewhat sloppy salute. "Look, Xan, I know you've got your issues, we ALL have issues, but there's one thing I've never been more certain of in all my life: I love you. That's not Liara talking and it's not a crush talking. It's the truth. You can fight it all you like but I'm thinking I'll outlast you in the stamina department. Both in this argument and… other things."

With that she walked back to the door to the cabin, went through and seconds later he could hear the sound of the elevator descending leaving him with on odd feeling of dread in his stomach.

_NOT good!_ he thought as his mind came up with some possible scenarios involving a determined romance drive Dawn Summers.

He'd almost prefer fighting Sovereign with a sling shot than Dawn as she was at the moment!


	5. A Shifting of the Landscape

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted material contained herein. They are the rightful property of their respective owners and/or associated companies. I make no profit from this whatsoever and I have no intention of changing that in the future. I write because it's fun and because there are those who enjoy reading my work. Therefore I would appreciate it if no legal action were taken against me. I can assure you that you won't make back even a tenth of your legal fees.

_**Eagle Nebula, Imir System**_

_**Normandy SR-2, Elevator Heading for Deck Five Hangar, One Hour Later**_

_**Colonel Jack O'Neill's POV**_

"Okay, let's review the plan one more time just for those who weren't paying complete attention the first time," Commander Shepard said after checking his big honking pistol. "Team one, consisting of Liara, Kasumi, Grunt, SG-1 and myself, will descend to the planet in the Mako, landing two klicks from where sensors have detected the compound. That should be far enough away to avoid being picked up by sensors. We will then advance on the facility, going for optimum stealth the entire way. That means avoid patrols, not killing them, and not firing a shot unless we absolutely have to.

"Once we arrive at the compound Kasumi will use her skills to infiltrate it and get the lay of the land," Shepard explained as the doors to the hangar opened. "Number of Jaffa, their placement, their patrol patterns and compound defenses she can spot. Once we have a better idea of the obstacles in our path we can figure out the best way to circumvent them. According to Anise there'll be defense towers around the perimeter, patrols both on the wall as well as inside the compound, not to mention scanners around the more important places. Nevertheless I want visual confirmation of all of them before committing us to the assault.

"Assuming there aren't any surprises, Kasumi will start things off by causing a distraction inside the compound to get the Jaffa forces focused inward. Once this has taken full effect the rest of us will emerge from the surrounding cover and use the ML-77s to take out the defense towers facing our approach vector. Next go the doors and, once inside, we'll fire one final salvo to deal with the remaining towers before taking on the Jaffa. We'll split into two teams to divide their forces before meeting up at the central building inside the compound. If the Goa'uld think anything like a human does then that's where the important labs will be, as well as any self-destruct mechanism that might be there."

"You still believe that they would destroy the complex?" Anise asked out of curiosity rather than contempt.

"This is obviously a top secret facility that one of the system lords is trying to keep the others from knowing about," Shepard said with confidence in his voice. "Odds are good that if whoever's in charge thinks the place is lost they'll destroy it all rather than risk it falling into the hands of an enemy. Once we're inside the central building Carter, Kasumi, Jackson and Grunt will go in search of the self-destruct mechanism and disable it. The rest of us will go for the labs and take care of any internal resistance.

"Meanwhile, after drop off, the Normandy will exit the atmosphere and take up orbit above our location. Miranda will be in command and it'll be her job to keep an eye out for any Ha'taks or other Goa'uld vessels that might come to reinforce the compound's inhabitants. We've already proven that we can take on two of them but if more show up, notify us immediately since we might have to pull out in a hurry," said the commander. "Assuming no one shows up and we can secure the compound, Jacob will then escort Anise down in the Kodiak shuttle. We'll then take full stock of the compound's assets both in terms of technology and information. All told the mission shouldn't take much more than five hours to complete. Questions?"

"The mission might be more expediently accomplished if I descended with the first team in the Mako, Commander Shepard." Anise said, clearly thinking her superiority would see her through a combat situation. "My knowledge of Goa'uld weapons and technology would prove invaluable in overcoming the obstacles in your path."

"Negative. From everything you've told me you're a scientist and archeologist. Not a warrior." Commander Shepard shook of his head. "That means you'd be a liability in the assault. You'll stay up here until the compound is secure. However, if it makes you feel better, my team will be wearing portable cameras that'll transmit video directly to the Normandy. If you see anything you think we should know about, let us know."

"Understood," Anise said, sounding only slightly content with the arrangements.

Too bad for her.

Note the sarcasm.

The moment he'd found out that Anise was going to be the Tok'ra representative he'd almost decided to sit out being Earth's rep on the Normandy. Only three things kept him from doing so.

One: He'd be DAMNED if he missed out on the chance to try out some of the toys he'd seen in the game. While some of the weapons Shepard and his team had on them at the moment weren't familiar to him, he'd still seen enough to make him want to stick around.

Two: SG-1 was a team that had been through hell together, literally in one case, and he refused to duck out on them just because of one person, no matter how much he disliked her. In his opinion Selmak and Jacob Carter would've been a much better choice not to mention easier to get along with. Still, what is, is, so he'd do what he could to keep things from going pear shaped due to his… pet peeves.

Three: He might not have been the smartest person on the team but even he knew how important this assignment was not only to the SGC but the planet Earth itself. If they played their cards right, they could gain technology and medicine two centuries ahead of anything they currently possessed and, best of all, it was all under the control of EARTHLINGS. Not the Nox. Not the Asgard. NOT the Tollan! Human beings from a futuristic alternate Earth! To him this meant there was a much better chance of getting something from them without the whole 'you are too primitive for our tech, so primitive it HURTS' they kept getting. No way in hell was he going to mess that up!

"Alright! Load up people!" Shepard said with a familiar military tone of voice.

They moved towards the advanced tank's entry hatch and, once Shepard had opened it, began to 'load up' as ordered. The interior of the vehicle definitely mirrored the interior of an armored personnel carrier but on each of the seats he could see four point seatbelts with quite a bit of padding added on. This made sense to him because, if he remembered the video game correctly, the Mako's landings could be a little bumpy even when done by a professional. If someone wasn't using the seatbelts they'd get tossed around quite a bit as well as possibly injured, so he knew he'd be insisting that everyone buckle up. It was a little funny seeing the Krogan Grunt try to put on the seatbelt but he was still thankful that he was trying since it was painful just thinking about someone that big bounce around inside an enclosed space.

"Okay, Joker! We're all in." Commander Shepard said from his place in the driver's seat. "Head on down."

"Aye, sir. Beginning descent," declared the pilot and, while it was fainter than anything he'd experienced before, he could feel a slight shift in the Normandy.

"Everyone make sure you're strapped in tight." Shepard yelled back to the rest of them. "The Mako wasn't built for civilian use. It was built for soldiers so it's going to be a bumpy landing."

"Landing?" Daniel asked, sounding like he didn't understand. "You mean the Normandy isn't going to set down and let us… drive off?"

"If we were on the Normandy SR-1, Doctor Jackson, we'd have no trouble landing on the planet below," Shepard replied without looking back from his seat. "However the SR-2 simply has too much mass to safely land without damaging itself. So we'll have to do this the old fashioned way."

"Old fashioned way?" Daniel asked with a bit of dread in his voice.

"Danny, I have a feeling you're about to experience your first combat drop in a Mako!" he said with a smile of excitement on his face.

"Drop altitude reached, Commander." Joker declared over the comm. System. "Opening the hanger door."

Though some had to lean in order to see it, the open air of the planet beckoned as the hanger door fell away.

"Launching…NOW!" Shepard said before the APC/tank surged forward.

"JJJAAAAACCCCKKK!" Daniel bellowed as gravity took hold of the vehicle.

Roller coasters had NOTHING on this and, while it was scary, it was also fun just like a roller coaster. For almost three minutes the fall continued before the sound of loud thrusters cut through the air, accompanying a swift deceleration and followed by a jarring thump that no doubt indicated they'd touched down on solid ground. Shepard hadn't been kidding when he'd said that the landing would be bumpy but thankfully the seatbelts had done their job and no one had gotten hurt.

"Colonel O'Neill? Care to man the machine gun and mass accelerator cannon?" Commander Shepard asked as the vehicle began to move towards the Goa'uld compound.

"YeahsureyouBETCHA!" he said before getting out of his seat and scrambling for the chair he predicted would rise up once he was inside.

He was proven right when, once he'd strapped himself in, the chair rose up until only the lower half of his body was still in the main area of the vehicle. Fortunately for him the controls of the cannon and the guns were the same as other similar weapons he'd used in his career so he wouldn't have to worry about pressing the wrong button by accident.

"Alright, Colonel; the button on the top of the joystick controls the cannon while the one on the side controls the machine guns. The cannons don't come with a rapid fire option so there will be a delay between when you can use it due to the auto-load mechanism. Also we have a limit of fifteen rounds, so don't waste them." Shepard explained from the driver's seat. "You have a little more room to spare with the machine guns in terms of ammo but they'll overheat if you hold down on the trigger too long. If that happens you'll have to wait about five to ten seconds to fire them again, so it'd be better to fire them in short bursts. Got it?"

"Gotcha!" he replied as he tested how to rotate the direction the cannon and the machine guns were pointed.

All in all he was fairly satisfied with how the whole system operated but he could tell immediately that there was a flaw in the Mako's design. While the weapons probably worked fine at a distance, if enemy forces managed to get inside their firing range troops would have to exit the vehicle in order to deal with them. On that note he started to put everything through its paces to test its speed and to get a feel for where the vehicle's minimal firing range was located.

_Nice! Wouldn't have minded having a few of these back in Iraq,_ he thought as the monitor that was a part of the targeting system displayed a rapidly approaching horizon.

"Now due to its size we won't be using the Mako for the first phase of the assault. They'd hear it and see it coming before it could get into effective firing range," Shepard said without any interruption in the driving. "So we'll be stopping just outside of hearing range. Once the towers have been taken care of we'll take it in and use it to punch a hole in the wall surrounding the perimeter of the compound. Three shots of the mass accelerator cannon should be enough."

"Should we not then place it between the compound and the stargate?" Teal'c asked with his usual manner.

"If we do this right we should be in and out before any reinforcements can come through the stargate," Shepard replied without concern in his voice. "Besides, if I know Miranda and EDI, they'll be monitoring the stargate as well as surrounding space. The second the gate goes active they'll let us know in plenty of time to reposition the Mako so we can intercept any new arrivals."

"Sounds good enough to me!" he said, not having a problem with the battle plan.

Plus how well everything went would give him a decent idea of just how good Commander Shepard and his team were in a firefight.

A videogame could only tell you so much after all.

_**The Treeline Two Hundred Yards from the R&amp;D Compound, Sunset, **_

_**Buffy 'Kasumi Goto' Summers POV**_

"You do know that I usually do my thing at night or at least in low lit environments, right?" she asked as she took in the compound with Kasumi Goto's instincts and memories guiding her.

"Sorry, but sunset's the latest I'm willing to wait," Xander said looking at the foreboding compound. "We have no idea what sort of timetable or guard rotation they're working on. I'd rather not find out the hard way that we let a light period in the guard pass us by then have to deal with a lot MORE guards."

"Point. Then I'll be back in a bit, Shep," she said, remembering to keep up the charade of pretending to be Kasumi.

Turning on her omni-tool, she typed a few commands to bring her tactical cloak online. Once she was satisfied that everything was working like it should, she advanced towards the wall of the compound. She wouldn't be able to use it indefinitely but, with a little luck, she wouldn't have to keep it on forever. Carefully she moved, keeping an eye out for disturbed dirt or any other signs of buried booby traps, but thankfully whoever was in charge of security didn't think to set any defenses outside of the wall.

_Probably figured that they'd see anyone coming with all this open space,_ she thought as she reached the wall. _If not for my handy-dandy cloaking tech they'd probably be right. Guess this is their unlucky day._

Looking up, she guessed the wall to be about three to four times the height of the school wall that surrounded Sunnydale High, so jumping to the top might be a little more than she could manage at the moment. Examining the wall, she could tell that it wasn't one hundred percent smooth, there were cracks where the slabs of stone came together, indicating that either this wall wasn't meant to be long lasting or the owner liked the castle look. Whatever the case, it provided her a way to scale the side rather than risk being heard had she failed to make the leap, so, with a deep breath, she began the climb. It wasn't fun since she could only get about an inch of her finger in the cracks between the stone slabs, but after a couple of minutes she reached the top.

Taking a peek over to see if there was anyone close, she pulled herself up after finding no one in the immediate vicinity. Looking around within the compound, she found it to be much the way the Normandy's sensor scan had shown it to be in terms of basic layout but not the fine details. Immediately she began to memorize as much as she could about the security layout, from the number of Jaffa to any weapons emplacements she could spot. Normally she would've just made notes on her omni-tool but to do that she'd need to decloak and she could already tell that there were far too many Jaffa to risk that. This caused her to be annoyed one minute and patient the next, making her curse Posey again for saddling her with the mind of a thief. Having two different minds with such different ways of living gave her some serious headaches with the warring attributes butting heads. She'd never been the patient sort, preferring action to talking or researching, but her memories of Kasumi told her the thief had learned patience. The Asian woman had been taught that timing was everything to a successful job and that too many amateurs wound up getting caught by being impatient. So, when the two sides met inside her head, something that felt an awful lot like a migraine popped up putting her in a seriously bad mood.

It was as she directed her gaze to the central building that she noticed something that sharply caught her attention. The door to the central building and the area around it was of a distinctly different design than the rest of the complex. According to what she'd learned both from SG1 and Anise, the Goa'uld system lords tended to favor gold symbols and temple architecture but what she was looking at was decidedly more scientific in nature. No real aesthetic taste was used in its construction from what she could tell, with functionality apparently being given top priority.

_I need to get a closer look,_ she thought as she looked about for the swiftest way down into the compound and a suitable hiding spot.

A minute later she dropped off the side of the wall, bounced silently off of the roof of a small shack-like building and landed in a crouch that'd probably be considered stylish if anyone could actually see her. At most, though, someone might've spotted the dirt displaced by her landing but it was Kasumi's experience that few people managed to connect the dots when footprints suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Quietly moving to the small alcove across from the central building that was both far enough away from normal foot traffic AND gave her barely enough concealment, she waited until she was sure it was safe before decloaking.

_Better make this quick,_ she thought as she brought her omni-tool online.

Aiming the scanner at the central building, she initiated the program Kasumi often used when she wanted to get a detailed scan of a target, including looking for concealed security features. Not all security systems were out in the open and some of them were hidden in some pretty sneaky ways that had caused Kasumi no small amount of excitement. The only downside was that it took about ten minutes to complete and required that she hold her arm and the omni-tool steady or risk blurring up the information a bit. If a Jaffa patrol spotted her before she was done and able to cloak herself again, she'd have the attention of a whole lot of men and none of them would be interested in treating her like a lady.

Damn. Kasumi's personality had creeped up on her again.

The woman had some quip-fu skill like her but had an attitude a lot more like Faith, especially when it came to guys and 'fun'. She, on the other hand, didn't think getting the attention of more than one man to be all that interesting since she was more of a 'quality over quantity' type of girl. She'd rather have one guy who had all the qualities she was looking for giving her the 'I want you' eyeball then a bunch of average guys undressing her with their minds.

Seconds ticked by as the progress bar on her omni-tool continued to fill as it conducted its scans of the central building and the warring mindsets within her caused her brain to throb. When the scan finally finished, she prepared to type in the command to reactivate her tactical cloaking field when her Slayer instincts told her to move. Since they'd never failed her before she quickly rolled away from her previous position and a volley of energy much like lightning struck the ground where she'd been. Turning, she saw one Jaffa wielding some kind of snake-shaped sidearm, looking decidedly hostile towards her. She knew that even if she managed to cloak the Jaffa would put the entire compound on alert, so she decided to move Xander's plan along ahead of schedule.

Taking out two of her flashbang grenades she activated both, throwing one at the Jaffa while the other was thrown as high into the air as she could manage in her current position. Seconds later both grenades went off, blinding everyone within range that wasn't expecting them and therefore didn't look away in time. As soon as the light faded she pulled out her M-12 Locust but she didn't use it the way most people would because, no matter how she'd changed since Posey's spell, she would NOT kill humans. From everything she'd seen of Teal'c and the questions she'd asked SG-1, Jaffa were just humans that'd had their ancestors kidnapped and put into slavery by the Goa'uld. So she'd kick their butts but she would not kill them, so she only used her Locust to inflict disabling wounds to the limbs but nowhere near any major arteries. Once she was sure that her current opponent wouldn't be able to fight due to the injuries to his limbs, she moved on to the next, using the speed, agility and reflexes to stay one move ahead of them. She mixed in some hand-to-hand where she could and used her tactical cloak to make them hesitate just long enough to allow her blows to land, but she knew she wouldn't be able to take care of this entire compound by herself.

Fortunately for her she wouldn't have to because, just like Xan's original plan with her distraction causing everyone to focus inwards, the Jaffa were completely unprepared to deal with a powerful OUTSIDE threat. Taking a brief look up, she smiled at the two destroyed gun emplacements on the wall and then lowered her gaze to see the gaping hole in the wall at ground level. With dirt and stone dust still falling, she watched as the others charge in guns a blazing as well as several displays of biotics from Dawn. However her joy at the arrival of reinforcements took on a bitter flavor as she realized that neither Xander nor Andrew were using their weapons with the intent to defeat the Jaffa.

They are using them with the intent to KILL.

Had they so quickly forgot the number one rule of the Organization? No killing humans unless they're magic users and even then only if it is necessary.

Had their costume personaes poisoned who they really were?

Was Xander going to become more like Shepard and Andrew more like Grunt?!

_I sure hope Willow and Giles are close to coming up with a spell to fix all this! _she thought as she flipped backwards striking a Jaffa in the jaw with her right foot as she went. _We have to get back to normal ASAP!_

_**Xander's POV**_

"Alright! Looks like the fireworks are over but stay alert," he said as he lowered his M-96 Mattock slightly when no new hostiles popped into his field of vision. "Colonel O'Neill? Take Liara and Grunt and clear the other buildings. I'll stay here and back Miss Goto up so she can crack the systems of the central building without interruptions. Assuming we're hostile free after that, I'll signal the Normandy to send down Anise."

"Can't wait for that," O'Neill muttered just loud enough to be heard before his team plus two went to work clearing the other structures.

_Definitely going to have to get the story on why SG-1 isn't all that crazy about the Tok'ra representative._ He walked to a safe distance from Buffy and took up a defensive position. _If there's a problem then I want the details sooner rather than later._

Panning his gaze back and forth, examining every shadow and place of cover before moving on, he made sure to keep the openings for a last minute enemy attack to a minimum. He was pretty sure that they'd gotten all of the Jaffa since, from his point of view, they weren't all that in favor of stealth attacks. No, they reminded him more of those old civil war movies where all the riflemen would line up, take aim and then fire before kneeling down so that the line behind them could open fire. It was like they were completely confident that their armor and weapons would make up for a lack of strategic thinking. A random guy with a staff had shown himself to be intelligent enough to take cover behind a slab of stone or a crate before opening fire but that only made the warrior last a little longer than his comrades. All in all it made his original assessment of the situation seem to be quite accurate: the enemy had power and numbers but lacked skill.

Still, this was only his first firefight with them, so he'd keep his mind open in case he needed to revise his opinion of the Jaffa warriors.

"How is the security cracking coming?" he asked Buffy after a few minutes. "Having any trouble?"

"The only trouble I'm having is learning a new OS. Most of my know how is based on completely different software." Buffy replied with a slight edge to her voice as she worked away on her omni-tool. "I should still be able to bring down the security in ten to fifteen minutes."

He was tempted to look at the senior Slayer when he heard the tone in her voice but decided now was not the time to ask why she was mad at him. They were in the field with too many unauthorized ears in a position to eavesdrop on any conversation they'd have. Once the mission was over, though, and they were back on the Normandy, he'd ask her up to his quarters and have EDI switch on the privacy settings. A quick review of his recent memory brought up nada in terms of anything that might have set her off but, then again, he'd learned long ago that nothing to a man could mean something to a woman, so it was possible that he'd have to say he was sorry later.

That is assuming, of course, that he agreed that whatever it was he'd done was wrong and worth saying he was sorry about.

By the time Buffy shut down her omni-tool, SG-1, along with Andrew and Dawn, had finished their sweep of the other buildings, confirming that all hostiles were down. If this place was indeed some kind of secret weapons R&amp;D compound, he could only assume that the boss snake had been absolutely confident that no one would find it. The fight had been a little tough but nothing that made him think that it was particularly valuable or that it was a place to be held at all cost. Still, a win was a win and, with a little bit of luck, they'd find the location of a juicier target that'd let them deal more damage to enemy resources than this one had.

"Security's down and every trap I could access wirelessly has been switched off," Buffy said, turning to the reassembling group. "Probably a good idea though to keep your eyes peeled just the same."

"Good advice," he said before he activated his com-link. "Shepard to Normandy. Compound is secure and security systems on the main building have been neutralized. Anise is clear to come down."

"Roger that, Commander," Robin said over the link. "I'm bringing her down now."

With the call concluded he turned to the sweepers to find out if they stumbled across anything interesting during their survey of the rest of the compound.

"Any clues about who's running the show here?" he asked Colonel O'Neill, since the guy held the highest rank next to him.

"Nope," O'Neill replied, popping the p of 'nope' as he spoke. "Jaffa had forehead tattoos from a half dozen different system lords and anything else that was branded told the same story."

"Any chance that we've got multiple Goa'uld working together on a single project?" he asked, trying to get an accurate grasp of the situation.

"That is unlikely, Commander Shepard," Teal'c replied in his usual ice man tone. "The Goa'uld are arrogant and selfish beings. They only join forces in times of great need against a common enemy and betray one another whenever it is most convenient for them."

"So either we've got a group of Jaffa running their own little operation or a Goa'uld that's been recruiting from the ranks of his enemies?" he asked, voicing his options on the matter. "That might explain the minimal security and no ships in orbit. Whoever's calling the shots doesn't want to attract attention to his or her operation."

"You call this minimal security?" O'Neill asked, sounding a little incredulous.

"Pretty much. No kinetic barriers, no automated defense turrets, no minefield surrounding the perimeter and way too few soldiers," he replied, listing the things that would've made taking the place more difficult. "I've raided Blue Sun bases better protected than this."

No member of SG-1 quite knew what to say to that so they just kept quite as they waited for the Kodiak shuttle carrying Anise to arrive. That didn't take long and, since there was no danger of anti-aircraft fire, Robin set the vehicle down in the middle of the compound before popping the side hatch. Anise was, naturally, the first one out and he could see her evaluating the aftermath of the battle before focusing on the central building, where most of the promising bounty was likely to be found. She struck him as being a bit smug and superior but he had experience dealing with those types from back in high school as well as more recently some newly Called Slayers who thought their powers made them superior to everyone else, including him.

It had taken him about fifteen minutes and four nasty bruises later to correct the thinking of those Slayers, whereas with Cordy, along with her Cordettes, he'd just verbally outmaneuvered them. Queen C had given as good as she'd received, certainly much better than her minions, but he recalled a good couple of victories over her just the same. If Anise turned out to be just as bad as the previous ladies he'd bumped into, he was confident that he'd be able to surprise her and get her to mind her manners while on official business. If things really went down the crapper with her, he'd just notify that Tok'ra that their chosen representative had made one mistake too many and to prepare another. That, of course, was assuming that Giles and Willow didn't figure out a way to get them all back to normal sometime before then. He'd have to remember to check in with the two of them next time they were in the Sol system to see how things were going.

"I am impressed, Commander." Anise said, sounding like she was being honest. "Your plan worked quite well. Shall we see what these Jaffa were so determined to protect?"

"Sounds like a good idea," he replied with a nod before turning to Buffy. "Open it up."

With a few quick taps on the omni-tool, the front entrance of the central building opened, admitting them into what looked to be a cross between a warehouse and a well-stocked laboratory. Off to the far left were shelves containing a variety of things, ranging from machines to artifacts that would've been right at home in a museum. Considering that Teal'c's weapon didn't look like anything other than an ornate staff up until the big man flipped the right switch, he'd assume that the baubles were more than they appeared to be. The middle of the building was taken up by a fairly large grey sphere that hung in the air without any sign of support, implying an anti-gravity device of some kind. He didn't know what it was but figured it was probably some kind of Goa'uld computer or communications device of some kind. He really hoped it wasn't a bomb because, if it was, he had doubts that they'd be able to get out of range in time to avoid the worst of the blast. The right side of the building seemed to be where most of the examinations, testing and creating was being done, with various objects in different states of assembly or disassembly.

_Can't really make heads or tails of it myself, _he thought as he did a quick sweep for internal security devices. _Guess I'll have to wait until the eggheads have a minute to evaluate everything._

"This is quite interesting," Anise said, sounding like she was devoting half her mind to figuring out what she was looking at. "Some of these devices are indeed of Goa'uld technology, but others… they are different enough to suggest entirely different origins."

"Any idea where they're getting the new stuff?" Colonel O'Neill asked, looking like he too was keeping an eye out for trouble.

"No, sir. The technology doesn't match anything we've seen from either the Asgard or the Tollen." Major Carter replied as she began to examine the disassembled items. "Wherever some of this is from, it's not something we've seen before."

"Guess it's too much to hope that the snake heads got conned into buying junk?" O'Neill asked, sounding like he was only half serious.

"No, sir. It's a little hard to make out since it's in pieces but this is advanced technology." Carter said, looking up from one of the pieces she'd been examining.

"Anything in here look like a Goa'uld self-destruct device?" he asked, looking at Anise first and then Teal'c second. "Or something else designed to prevent theft?"

"Not that I can see," Teal'c replied after looking around the area for a minute. "However such devices would be disguised to look like ordinary items."

"The Tok'ra are familiar with such devices however I will need time to inspect each of the items to be certain." Anise replied, looking contemplative yet confident.

"Alright then. Let's divvy up the jobs. Carter and Goto can go to work getting what they can from the computers and Anise and Teal'c look over the items for any problems while the rest of us will handle loading what we can onto the shuttle. Sound good to you, Colonel?"

"How much of this stuff are we taking with us?" O'Neill asked, not sounding too enthusiastic about all the lifting he'd be doing.

"Only what's safe and only what we can manage inside of an hour," he replied, making sure everyone heard him. "We don't know what sort of procedures the one running this place has going on. If there's some rule where they have to report in, then their buddies will know something's up when no one checks in and then we'll be getting a lot more company than I'm comfortable with."

This seemed to put the Colonel a little more at ease but he still didn't look like he was happy about the manual labor.

"One hour… won't be sufficient time to move very much to the shuttle." Anise said, sounding like she wouldn't be happy unless two thirds of the buildings contents were brought up to the Normandy.

"Then I suggest you pick your pieces wisely," he said, not willing to budge on the timetable he'd set up.

He understood her desires but they didn't have the manpower or resources to defend the compound against a Jaffa effort to reclaim it for their master. If more ships like the one Zeus had showed up in orbit, it might not be possible to get either the shuttle or the Mako back on board, leaving only the stargate as a means of escape. Considering that the enemy Jaffa would secure that location against any enemy activity, getting through would not be an easy escape route especially if they brought in some heavy ordinance.

Unless something big came up that justified sticking around, they'd be off the planet and on the Normandy in sixty-one minutes.

_**The Normandy SR-2, Shuttle Bay, A Little Over An Hour Later, Anise's POV**_

_**I wish we had more time to examine what we found down there.**_ Anise thought as she exited the shuttle. _**Any one of them could've been vital to our efforts against the Goa'uld.**_

_Commander Shepard's reasoning was sound,_ Freya said as members of the Normandy's crew began to unload what items they'd brought with them. _Without knowing who precisely is behind the compound, we have no way to know when to expect enemy reinforcements. Better to escape with something than be caught on the planet._

She had to grudgingly concede to that but she still didn't like not being given time to look every item in the central building. Hopefully the items she had chosen for transport would give them a better idea of what they were dealing with and who was manipulating the situation from the shadows. Once she had that information, she could utilize the spies the Tok'ra had within the Goa'uld ranks to gather even more information.

Major Carter and Miss Goto had managed a complete transfer of the files from the computer they found to a portable data storage device but had indicated that some of the files were encrypted. While both sounded confident in their ability to decrypt the files, she believed that it would fall to her people to access the files since they had more experience in dealing with such things. Major Carter was clever for one of the Tau'ri and, given time, might make for a suitable colleague, but for now the blonde woman was too ignorant to consider her an equal. As for Miss Goto, she admitted that she'd been impressed with how swiftly the young woman had been able to circumvent Goa'uld security and gain access to the computer's contents. Getting one of those omni-tools to examine was something she was looking forward to since it would be quite useful to have such things while undercover in enemy territory. From what she could see, the hardware was small enough that it could easily be concealed and she might be willing to experiment with implanting it physically in an agent's body.

"The items will be stored in the Starboard Cargo Area until you're ready to examine them." Commander Shepard said, looking at her. "I trust you'll take all necessary precautions when working on an item."

"Of course," she said honestly since she considered it common sense to exercise some caution when dealing with the unfamiliar.

"Can't wait to see that." O'Neill muttered from a couple of feet away.

She took only a moment glare at the leader of SG-1 before regaining her composure.

She did not deny that her past interactions with them had been far from a resounding success but she didn't believe that she deserved to be spoken to in such a matter.

"I'll escort you up to the lab so you can get set up." Shepard said gesturing to the elevator. "It'll be a few minutes before everything's squared away so you'll have the time."

"I would be thankful, Commander," she said glad that the man appeared to think her worth his personal attention.

It was a sign that he might be open to a relationship outside of a professional setting but she would not allow herself to overestimate the potential of this development. At best she would be able to begin working on a friendship with the commanding officer of the Normandy and that would have to be her focus until she saw evidence that he would like to go further. How long it would take to get that far or if it would even be necessary in order to secure a strong position with the young man she did not know but she would be ready to act should that time come.

As a pair they walked over to and entered the elevator, Shepard pressed the button to take them to the level the lab was on. The doors closed before any of the other shuttle or Mako occupants could join them before she felt them begin to rise upwards.

"During the mission I noticed that Colonel O'Neill and the rest of SG-1 didn't seem to like you very much." Shepard said without turning his gaze towards her. "Did something happen between your two groups?"

_**Interesting. Did he plan for us to be alone in the elevator so he could speak with me in private?**_ she thought with a mental eyebrow raised. "Two of my previous encounters with SG-1 and the SGC in general did not turn out favorably. They likely hold me responsible for how poorly things went."

"Oh? What happened?" he asked, sounding genuinely interested.

While she was tempted to give him an edited version of the events, she chose not to in the end since it would only reflect poorly on her when he inevitably questioned SG-1 later.

"My first encounter with them was when I came to the SGC to test armbands that belonged to an ancient race called the Ataniks and, based on my research, they had the ability to enhance the natural abilities of those who wore them. Increased speed and strength were the most mentioned enhancements but the Tok'ra were unable to learn more due to an unusual anomaly in the devices." she explained, doing her best not to leave herself open to damaging cross examination later.

"And that would be?" Shepard asked as they waited to reach the desired level.

"They would not work if there was a symbiote present in the human body and therefore it was impossible for the Tok'ra to continue working on them alone. As a result I was sent to the SGC in the hopes that the armbands would work for them so that more could be learned about them. Colonel O'Neill, Major Carter and Doctor Jackson agreed to wear the armbands and the devices did accept them," she replied as she recalled the specifics of the encounter. "Over the next few hours each of them underwent increases in strength, speed, agility and metabolism, to say nothing of individual improvements such as improved night vision in Major Carter or accelerated reading in Doctor Jackson's case."

"What went wrong?" Commander Shepard asked as they arrived at the desired level.

"Behavioral anomalies began to manifest in them, ranging from irrational behavior to a sense of invulnerability. It caused the three of them to disobey orders to remain on base and getting into a fight at a local restaurant. The true matter of concern, however, did not occur until intelligence was revealed of a new battleship under construction by the forces of Apophis." She honestly felt a little remorseful for her role in what happened. "All three of them declared their interest in using the armbands to attack the ship and destroy it before it could be finished, however General Hammond was against it due to their irrational behavior. They disobeyed him and went to the planet where the battleship was being constructed. It was only learned after they'd left that their bodies were producing anti-bodies that neutralized the virus that gave them their enhanced abilities. It was believed that past a certain point they would lose their enhancements and become… vulnerable."

"Seeing as they're all here and alive, I take it the rescue effort was successful?" Shepard asked, sounding like he'd already come to a conclusion.

"Yes, it was. However SG-1 and certain members of the SGC have chosen to hold me responsible for what was done under the influence of the armbands and believe that I mentioned Apophis' prototype knowing that the three of them would go to destroy it." She waited to see how the leader of the Normandy would react.

"And the other 'encounter'?" he asked, indicating she should continue.

"The Tok'ra and the Tauri were in the process of formally signing a treaty that would solidify the alliance between our two groups. However during a meeting at our base, one of the members of the SGC began to attack using a Goa'uld weapon when he saw Supreme High Councilor Per'sus. We learned later that the soldier was the victim of a mind-control technology the Goa'uld possess to turn anyone into what is called a Za'tarc," she explained, personally not liking the event in question. "Previous to this moment there was no conclusive proof that the technology existed but I was confident that a device I'd constructed would prove up to the task of detecting anyone who'd undergone the process while prisoner of the Goa'uld."

"How does the device work?" he asked as they proceeded towards the lab.

"It uses a memory recall device in concert with an eye scanner to compare a person's conscious memory with their subconscious memory. It is in finding discrepancies between what the subject believes and what exists in their subconscious that a Za'tarc can be found," she replied before coming to the one flaw in the device that she had yet to resolve. "However if the person being scanned is agitated, aggressive or lies about something that happened without realizing it, it can cause the device to mark them as Za'tarcs. When Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter proved that they were not Za'tarcs, they also revealed that they had… feelings… for each other that their positions would not allow. I believe that they blame me for using unproven technology to introduce suspicion and mistrust into their ranks, as well as expose personal feelings of two of their valuable members."

"That explains their attitude. Still, at least they've proven willing to stay professional when it counts," he said as the doors to the lab opened up. "I have only two questions for you, Anise: did you know how the armbands would affect those three before you came to Earth? Did you turn over the intel about the prototype battleship hoping that they'd go after it?"

"No. As I said, we had no way to test the armbands prior to arriving on Earth," she replied, wanting to convince the man of her honesty. "The world on which they were found was in ruins, with only fragmented files that could be salvaged. It was enough to let us know that what we'd found was valuable but nothing about any flaws or side effects. As for the matter of the prototype battleship, it is part of the agreement between the SGC and the Tok'ra that all useful information and resources be shared. I was merely upholding that agreement."

As they entered the lab, silence formed between them as the Commander thought on what she'd told him and she hoped that he would not choose to take the SGC's side. It would damage the Tok'ra's position on the Normandy and damage her position among her people as well.

"If what you're telling me is true then in both cases they're letting their emotions cloud their judgment. You had no way to know what the armbands would do and, if they were as enhanced as much as you say, then they should've locked down the stargate until the devices came off," Shepard said, finally coming to a conclusion. "As for the Za'tarc detector, it was a work in progress to begin with so the SGC should've expected a few slip ups. Besides, having something around to try and sniff out the assassins was probably better than having nothing. If there'd been no way to tell who'd go on a killing spree next, the treaty signing would probably never have happened and it probably settled some nerves knowing that there was a way to learn the truth."

This she had not expected.

In all honesty she'd expected the commander to judge her as the SGC had, placing a formidable obstacle in her path to securing a formal alliance between the Normandy and the Tok'ra. Instead the man before her had chosen to trust her and judge her based on the facts rather than any irrational emotions that might have arisen. It was an enlightened point of view and one that made her think that developing a relationship with the man might be easier than she'd first thought.

"I'll leave you to get set up for your work. Just ask EDI if there's anything you don't understand or need help with," he said before turning to leave no doubt to see to other duties.

"I will," she said with a small grin. "Thank you, Commander."

A lopsided smile was all he sent her in return.

_**Normandy SR-2, Port Observation Room, A Little While Later, Dawn's POV**_

"Something on your mind, Buffy?" she asked as soon as the door to the room closed.

Ever since they'd all climbed back into the Mako to return to the Normandy, she'd known that something had been bothering her older sister and the looks occasionally sent to Xander meant he was involved somehow. Since it hadn't been there before the mission down on the planet, she could only assume that Xan did something down there that Buffy didn't like. The fact that her sister hadn't confronted their friend so far told her that whatever it was, the ninja thief didn't want it to be general knowledge. That was why she had come, to talk things out before it became a problem, and hopefully it wouldn't be anything that couldn't be talked out.

"Not really. Why?" Buffy asked, trying to sound casual but with her outfit's hood down it was easier to spot her tells.

"Nice try, Buffy, but you're forgetting I know you better than anyone else on this ship," she said in a tone that made it clear that bullshitting wasn't going to work. "Now are you going to fess up or am I going to have to go all 'embrace eternity' on you."

She could tell that it took a few minutes for her sister to get her last statement but, judging by the frown, the Slayer understood that avoiding the issue wouldn't get her anywhere.

"It's Xander and Andrew and… well, I think we're all feeling it one way or another. We're losing ourselves to our costumes and I don't want to know how long it'll be before there's no going back." Buffy replied, sounding like she was very concerned.

"I'll admit that some things are coming easier to us than they did right after Posey's spell was shut down but it's not that bad. I know who I am and that hasn't changed," she said, sounding understanding but not as concerned.

"Okay, so you and I might still be ourselves but Xander and Andrew definitely aren't." Buffy said, sounding convinced of her position. "They killed the Jaffa down there! Killed them! We DON'T KILL HUMANS! With what we had it wasn't necessary!"

With that one statement she realized what was causing her sister so much trouble but at the same time she couldn't help but be exasperated at her sisters naivete. It was one of the things that'd stuck with her older sibling from the very first day she'd been a Slayer and hadn't gone away even after all the things they'd been through. Whether it was Buffy's upbringing or the line she'd been repeatedly told by Giles back when the Old Council had been running things, Buffy had never supported using excessive force, much less lethal force, on humans. It was a stupid idea that to have a soul meant that you were good or deserving of every chance to reform or someone to be left to the lawful authorities to handle. Some of the younger Slayers felt the same way but, the older they or any other member of the Organization got, the more they realized that life was a lot more complicated than that.

"It's not that simple, Buffy," she said, sitting down on the couch. "If we'd let them live, it would've only made things more complicated."

She saw the shocked look on her sister's face and she knew that her sibling had expected her to see things the same way. She knew what was coming and decided to head off Buffy's rant before it could get started by laying out the bare bones facts as she saw them.

"If we'd let those Jaffa live, what could we do with them after we'd taken the base?" she asked rhetorically. "If we'd just left them behind they'd have reported back to their boss with everything they knew and it's pretty much a rule in the bad guy book of conduct to kill subordinates who screw up. As for imprisoning them, that's not a good idea no matter who got saddled with them. The Tok'ra, from what I've learned, are resistance fighters that regularly move from planet to planet to keep from being found. They might have jail cells for a handful of Jaffa but no more than that and it'd be a pain to have to take the prisoners with them whenever they moved. Transporting them back to Earth isn't a good idea because they'll likely be thrown in some secret prison where rules are more like guidelines or someplace like the Initiative. Do you really think they deserve to be thrown in places like that?"

She could tell that Buffy was scrambling to think up an idea that fit with her personal morals and that meant it'd take more convincing to change her point of view.

"We could try reasoning with them!" Buffy exclaimed, sounding like she thought that she had a good idea. "That guy Teal'c got convinced he was on the wrong side, right? We could do the same to others!"

_Talk about grasping at straws! _she thought. "Buffy… according to Doctor Jackson, the Jaffa have been living as slaves and warriors to the Goa'uld for centuries, maybe even millennia, with anyone trying to break free crushed mercilessly. They've been conditioned, brainwashed, to see the Goa'uld as gods and to obey them on pain of death either for them or their loved ones. I'd say Teal'c is the exception among the Jaffa more than the rule."

"You don't know that! There could be thousands of people who think like him but just need to know that they're not alone." Buffy said, clearly not willing to give him her final line of defense.

"Maybe, but if there are people among the Jaffa who hate the Goa'uld as much as we do, they're probably pretty good at keeping this fact to themselves. With no way of knowing who's on our side and who's still towing the company line, we wouldn't know who to trust and if we let go the ones who pretend to see the light, they'll just go running right back to their master with what they've learned." She shook of her head, "It'll either end up coming back to bite us in the ass or get the messenger shot for his trouble. Either way, until we have a better way than Jaffa Roulette to tell who's a free thinker and who's still brainwashed, we have to be willing to use lethal force against them."

"I hate it when you use reason!" Buffy grumped before pulling her knees up and wrapping her arms around them.

"I know," she said with a small grin. "Look at it this way: with a little bit of luck Giles and Willow figure out how to change us back soon and you won't have to worry about killing humans for much longer."

"I just hope I can hold out that long," Buffy said, sounding only marginally optimistic about being cured anytime soon.

"I can speak to Xander and tell him to keep you off missions where there's a high chance of fighting happening," she said, trying to boost her sister's mood. "If anything needs stealing or hacking, then he'll send you in."

"Thanks, I think," Buffy said, making the connection between stealing and her rising klepto tendencies.

Just about everyone on board had come to notice that whenever something shiny or potentially valuable was within reach, Buffy would visibly appear to want to slip it into her pocket but repeatedly stop herself. It was odd because her Liara memories showed that Kasumi Goto might've been a thief and enjoyed her occupation, it would've been an overstatement to say she was afflicted by a case of kleptomania. With the Asian woman it'd been more of a lifestyle choice rather than the end result of an affliction but with Buffy it was looking more and more like the opposite was the case. Was the mental imprint different for Buffy because she was a Slayer or was the fact that Buffy was fighting the imprint, causing it to mutate in some manner? She had no real way of knowing but it might be worth keeping an eye out for just to make sure that Buffy wouldn't have any regrets after this whole mess came to an end.

"Speaking of Xander, you might want to keep an eye on Anise for the next couple of weeks." Buffy said with a growing grin on her face.

"What do you mean?" she asked even as some anxiety rose up within her.

"I've seen the way she looks at Xander," Buffy replied, looking very amused. "Reminds me of some of the girls back at Hemery when they found a MVP jock who was single and wanted to be just as popular as him. Some of the skanky ones would even trade sex for the right to be the guy's girlfriend."

That began to put an image into her mind that she did NOT like.

"Anise acts just like one of them and if she doesn't put the moves on him in the next couple of days, she will soon enough." Buffy was definitely enjoying what she was doing.

"Aren't you happy about that?" she asked, with snark just barely beneath the surface. "I thought you didn't want me to date Xander."

"Honestly I was only really against it at first because you were my little sister. Little sisters aren't supposed to date their older sister's friend," Buffy replied, losing some of her amusement. "When you got older and got over him, I figured that'd be it. Now… now seeing your crush on him back in full force, I'm wondering if its time I step back and let you make your own choices."

"You mean you'd actually let me date Xander?" she asked with a little doubt in her voice.

"It MEANS I will do what I can to let go and not stick my nose into your business," Buffy replied, sounding like it'd be hard for her.

"I can live with that," she said with a smile that quickly turned into a frown.

If her sister's guess about Anise was right, then she'd have to do everything she could to make it impossible for the Tok'ra and Xander to have any alone time together. No alone time equaled no chances for the tramp to put the moves on HER man and gave her a better chance of catching him once she broke down his resistance to the idea of the two of them becoming an official couple.

_Game on!_

_**Unknown Location, Two Hours Later**_

"Repeat what you have just told me."

"Almost two hours ago the research and development compound in charge of the new staff weapons failed to contact us at the desired time," the kneeling Jaffa said while doing a remarkable job suppressing his fear. "As per your orders we made one attempt to contact them before forcing a connection with the communications device within the compound. There was no one in the building. We then sent fifty Jaffa through the Chappa'ai to investigate in person. Evidence found upon arrival indicated that the compound had come under attack and its defenses swiftly overcome. There were no survivors. Examination of the area is still underway but I have confirmed that items were taken from the central building and information taken from the computers."

Silence reigned for a time but the Jaffa did not look up, nor allow his growing fear show on his face or in his body language.

"This concerns me. Someone has not only learned of one of my compounds but has stolen what belongs to me. I trust that you will do everything in your power to determine who they are and where they can be found."

"I swear to you, my lord, I will not rest until all are captured and brought before you!" the Jaffa said with resolve born of a desire to live.

"See that you do not or I will be forced to express my displeasure to you, your family and your entire village. Now…GO!"

With that the Jaffa saluted once before rising and marching out of the room like a man with a purpose that would not be denied. He would succeed or die in the attempt.

There were no other options.

_**Normandy SR-2, Communications Room, The Next Day, Afternoon, Xander's POV**_

"Major Carter, Anise, have you managed to learn anything of value from what we recovered from the compound in the Eagle Nebula?" he asked as he took in the gather specialists, SG-1 and the Tok'ra representative.

"Indeed we have, Commander. If you would display the first image, EDI?" Anise asked before a holographic display of an odd looking weapon appeared. "This is the weapon that originally drew our attention to the planet in question. Upon examination of the object we confirmed that it was made of materials consistent with what the Goa'uld use in the manufacture of their staff weapons, albeit with one important difference. The weapon is at least fifty years more advanced than any technology currently in use or in development by the System Lords."

"How is that possible? The Goa'uld are essentially parasitic by nature and usually just take new technology that they find and adapt it to their needs. I mean, I suppose there must be the odd scientist among them developing new inventions but not this advanced." Doctor Jackson said from where he stood next to his team.

"It shouldn't be," Major Carter said as EDI manipulated the hologram to 'explode' the weapon into its individual parts. "Technological developments are linked every step of the way to the point where they can be traced back to the initial invention. The number of improvements connecting a staff weapon to this would have to be five or more but we didn't find anything at the compound to support this. It's like someone just dumped the blueprints for this weapon into the Jaffa's laps and told them to make it."

"What's the likelihood of that?" he asked, deciding to explore that possibility for the time being. "Have the Tok'ra heard of anyone possessing tech this advanced working with a System Lord?"

"No, and we have agents at key places within the empires of the most powerful among them. If they were working with an outside party, we would have discovered some evidence of it." Anise replied, sounding troubled by the discovery.

"So either Tok'ra intelligence ain't what it used to be or whichever Snake Head is behind this is playing things VERY close to the vest." O'Neill said with his usual casual manner.

"Well, that's encouraging at the very least." Faith said with a bit of Miranda Lawson thrown in.

"Encouraging… how?" O'Neill asked, sounding like he thought it should be the opposite.

"The fact that the System Lord responsible is going to such lengths to keep his weapons development a secret tells me that he or she isn't ready to be exposed just yet," Faith replied, letting Lawson's superior, aristocratic accent come through. "That means we have time to learn more and perhaps stop them before they raise the curtain on whatever they have planned."

"Any idea how much time? How far along would you say this new weapon is?" he asked, turning back to the scientists in the room. "Would you say it's about ready for mass production or do they still have some flaws to iron out?"

"Based on the files we managed to get from their computers and our examination of the weapon itself, I'd say we have no more than six months before the weapon is ready for mass deployment." Major Carter replied before Anise could do more than open her mouth.

"So we have until then to find out who's behind all this and put a stop to whatever they're up to," he said as he began to consider options. "Is there anything about it we can track? Any material that's rare enough to name a possible location of origin?"

"No. All materials are common and can be found on many worlds within many territories." Anise said, sounding a bit discouraged by her own answer.

"Then I guess the best we can do is scan every planet we come across and hope we find where they're being manufactured," he said, not liking the idea of a weapons manufacturing facility out there and luck being the only way to find it. "EDI? Whenever we stop by a planet I want a full scan for any signs of a factory or a weapons depot that shouldn't be there."

"Acknowledged, Shepard." EDI said from the speakers in the room.

"Okay, if we don't have a way to track the weapons, maybe we can figure out a way to guess which snake head is behind this. Anise? How many System Lords that you know of would have the resources and the inclination for something like this?" he asked, turning to look at the Tok'ra representative.

"None of the minor Goa'ulds would have the resources to research and develop new weaponry. Most of them are subordinate to other, more powerful Goa'uld and are closely monitored for signs of treachery. Those that are not rule only small domains and are often wary of doing anything that might provoke an armed response from their larger 'neighbors'," Anise replied, shaking her head. "As for the seven System Lords that wield power akin to Apophis, any one of them could support a venture such as this but I cannot say for certain which one."

"Then once we get back to Earth, contact your people and tell them to have their spies ask some discreet questions about any new weapons or facilities," he said, deciding that with the Tok'ra's help they might be able to shorten the time it took to search. "Nothing that'll blow their cover but every bit of information could be just what we need."

A nod from Anise told him that she would do as he asked.

"Anything else worth hearing about?" he asked, turning to Major Carter.

"No. We've managed to decrypt almost all of the files downloaded from the compound but they just support the idea that they got the plans for their devices from someone else." Carter replied with a negative shake of her head. "As for the technology and artifacts we brought back, we'll need more time to determine their function and what the end result is supposed to be."

"Well, we did better than I thought we would," he said, satisfied for the time being. "Focus on examining this new weapon on the trip home. The more information we gain from it, the easier it'll be to come up with a defense against it."

With a nod from the two scientists, he called an end to the meeting and everyone went their separate ways, with him heading down to mess hall for a bite to eat. He'd been working in his cabin for a while, trying to figure out what they were up against while also filtering through the mass effect tech for things that could be passed on prior to the reversion. On the hand of the mystery enemy, there were just too many possibilities and not enough facts to narrow them down to something reasonable that they could take action on. On the other matter, he'd managed to come up with two or three things that he was fairly certain couldn't be weaponized without tech Earth wouldn't have. When they got back to Earth, he'd use the secure connection they had to the castle to check with Giles to see if they had an ETA on the counter spell. He knew it was probably weeks to go but he preferred to have a countdown to work with rather than some nebulous 'soon' or 'a couple of weeks'.

He'd just sat down with his meal when he saw Anise come around from the elevator and found himself feeling more optimistic of the Tok'ra than before. She had conducted herself well so far and hadn't done anything shady, making him all the more certain that SG-1 and the SGC had lost their objectivity when it came to her. It wasn't that he didn't see things from their point of view but nothing he'd heard supported their opinion of the woman. She'd had no knowledge of the flaws in the armbands prior to arriving on Earth, so she couldn't be held responsible for the side effects that popped up any more than the members of the SGC could. As for the sleeper assassins, it wasn't like the SGC had any better method for detecting them on hand and, if all that happened was some embarrassing revelations, then they got off easy.

"Good job with the info, Anise," he said as she sat down in the chair on the other side of the table. "It might not be much but it's more than we had before."

"Thank you, Commander," Anise said, looking a bit happy at his praise. "We should learn more with additional time."

"Let's hope that we have that kind of time," he said, remembering the number of times that time was in short supply for the Organization or him. "The universe doesn't always give you what you want."

"Sounds like there's a story behind that statement. Would you be willing to tell me about it?" she asked, sounding curious but not demanding.

He wasn't willing to tell her the truth but maybe one of the versions of Alexander Shepard's life would be enough to satisfy the Tok'ra's curiosity.

With that he began to tell her about some of 'his' adventures, both before the events of the game and what happened after the Battle of the Citadel. He made sure to include stuff not revealed in the game as well as a few personal touches just in case Anise ever decided to play the game, or at least watch its cutscenes at a later date. After all, she might get suspicious if he just retold the scenes shown in the game and nothing else.

It made for a good hour or two of storytelling and by then they were one mass relay jump away from returning to the Sol System.

_**Scotland, Slayer Organization Castle, Early Evening**_

_**Willow's POV**_

"What do you mean you won't reverse the changes?!" she exclaimed as she stood before the ethereal manifestations of the deities that'd helped Posey with her spell.

"If we alone were involved in the spell a reversal might have been possible," Vulcan said, sounding sympathetic to her plight. "However with the involvement of the Key and the tampering by one of the Risen, returning all to normal is no longer safe."

"What do you mean no longer safe?" she asked, not liking how unclear it was.

"You will learn in time, mortal," Jupiter said with respect and hope. "May the Fates guide you on your path. Farewell."

With that the ethereal manifestations dropped back into the pots holding the burning herbs and coals, vaporizing the whole thing before she could even think of stopping it.

For a moment she just looked at where the pots had been, unable to believe that she'd been told 'too bad, so sad' from some of the most prominent members of the Roman Pantheon. For a little over ten days she and Giles had been working around the clock to figure out a way to undo the cluster fuck Posey had created when she'd cast her spell. The others, Kennedy and Giles, had made numerous attempts to get her to take a break but, aside from draining a tube of that disgusting food paste and catching six hours of sleep when she could, every other moment was spent doing research. At first she'd tried to come up with a counter spell on her own but, while she was great with the theoretical stuff, she wasn't able to actually test out anything due to the changes in her body. That'd meant relying on the other Organization mages as well as the Devon Coven to test drive certain things and that'd frustrated her to no end. The more days that went by without anything encouraging, the more she felt like it'd go a lot better if she did it herself only she couldn't because Quarion body plus human magic equaled iffy spell casting.

As of the morning she'd had enough of sitting on the sidelines and doing grunt work, so she'd gathered the necessary ingredients, found an out of the way spot and phoned the Roman pantheon. It'd been touch and go with her magic not feeling right but, when the ethereal heads of the deities showed up, she knew she'd hit pay dirt. It'd been then that she'd done her best to present the case to the deities and try to convince them to use their power to return everything to the way it was. She hadn't been stupid, she'd told them to wait until the others were back on terra firma, but the answer she got… it wasn't what she wanted.

They'd turned their backs on her… on her friends… giving her nothing but a vague excuse about it not being 'safe'.

Her sadness and grief for what had been lost almost suffocated her, but then it was replaced by something far more powerful.

RAGE.

"FUCKIN' ASSHOLES!" she screamed as she let her power surge forth from within her as she began to throw anything that caught her fancy in any direction that looked good. "INBRED MOTHERFUCKING ASSHOLES!"

After a while she stopped saying anything even minimally articulate and just kept destroying things with her magic since it was impossible for her to contain her feelings. Eventually, though, she wore herself out and sank to the ground, breathing heavy and still feeling as miserable as ever, making her wonder what the point of it all had been. She almost didn't hear the door to the room she'd commandeered but, when she felt footsteps through the floor, she turned to see Giles walking in, likely wondering what had happened.

"They wouldn't do it, Giles," she said, barely keeping herself from sobbing. "They wouldn't FUCKING change us back! Gave me some bullshit excuse about it not being safe! FUCKERS!"

"Who wouldn't do it?" Giles asked, sounding calm and probably hoping that it'd rub off on her.

"Jupiter… Vulcan… the entire shit spouting Roman pantheon!" she replied, slamming her two fingered fist into the floor.

"I figured as much," Giles said, sitting down on the floor next to her.

"What do you mean?" she asked, mystified by the statement throwing the rest of her missions to the side for the moment.

"In all my years as a member of the Council, the one thing that was often stressed by my teachers was the necessity and importance of The Balance. The official position we were all expected to take was that we were to maintain the status quo between good and evil by keeping the latter from becoming too powerful," Giles replied with a look of recollection on his face. "We were even told that if we tried to fight to win or if the other side managed to gain a sizeable lead on us, that a higher power would take action to correct the situation. My teachers were never that clear about what this higher power was but most of us inferred that it meant a god, THE God, or a collection of deities.

"Given the consequences of Posey's spell, I had thought it might have been enough to prompt this higher power to intervene and change everything back to the way that it was. After all, mass effect technology, a working spacecraft and the manifestation of fictional aliens would disrupt the balance significantly," he explained, retelling his past thoughts. "However as time passed without a sign of intervention by a being of power, I began to believe that either our changes were beyond divine power's ability to undo or the changes were not considered enough to disrupt The Balance. Now I have confirmation that the deities might have the power to help us but, for reasons of their own, they have chosen not to."

"But why?! WHY!?" she asked, focusing on what she considered important. "Can't they see how much it's hurting us being this way?! How much it's hurting ME!?"

"Deities… while they may resemble us in many ways, they are nevertheless a different race entirely. They do not think or feel as we do, not always, and I imagine that we are of minor importance to them." He pulled her into a hug. "They are immortal; we live for less than a hundred years in most cases, so I imagine it would be difficult to care for such short lived forms of life. Still, if they claimed that it would not be safe to return us to who and what we were, then it may be worth considering as a genuine warning rather than an excuse."

"You mean like an apocalypse or something?" she asked, even though her emotions made it hard to think rationally.

"Perhaps. Perhaps the Roman pantheon believes that our only hope of overcoming what is to come is to rely upon the changes we have all undergone," he replied, continuing the line of thought. "If that is the case, then we have no choice but to trust them and prepare as best we can."

"And they've SO earned that trust!" she snarked, remembering all the times when the Scooby gang could've used a little divine help.

Giles looked to be about to say something when all of a sudden Kennedy charged into the room.

"Mister Giles, they need you in the Situation Room NOW!" Kennedy said, sounding afraid of something and that was saying something.

"What's wrong?" she asked, getting to her feet feeling curious as well as concerned.

"I think you two need to hear it directly from the other branch heads to believe it." Kennedy replied before running out of the room presumably back to the situation room.

Looking to Giles, he merely shrugged before walking swiftly from the room, leaving her to follow with only her inner need to know keeping her moving.

She was seriously hoping that what Giles had theorized and what had Kennedy so worried weren't connected because, if they were, then business was going to pick up rather quickly.

_**Situation Room, Giles' POV**_

_I have a very bad feeling about this._

Looking at the four large video screens mounted on the wall, he saw that they'd been split into four separate images, each showing the faces of the sixteen branch heads. Some looked to be in their offices while others appeared to be in the field somewhere, but all had concerned looks on their face that did not do good things for his mood.

_Ah well! Might as well get things started._ "What is the situation?"

"As you may recall, Rupert, you asked us to look into the sudden disappearance of several demon clans that had long been residents of specific areas," Ivan replied from the second screen on the wall. "At first I had anticipated that it would take weeks to locate and even longer to open a dialogue with them so we could learn more about what was going on. The reality proved to be quite different."

"They wouldn't speak with you?" he asked, thinking that some demonic species might withdraw into themselves and reject all outside contact.

"They weren't there. Well, most of them weren't," Ivan said, sounding as troubled as he looked. "The teams I sent to investigated reported most of the lairs completely vacant and the ones that weren't were populated by demons that were only just capable of thinking and speaking."

"We found the same to be the case here as well," Chen Jie said, not sounding much better than Ivan. "All demon species in the region capable of opening dimensional portals or that know where one could be found have vanished."

That did not bode well.

Many demon species had designs on Earth that they had devoted centuries to and it was often these designs that kept them from being open to negotiation or reason. For some, once they set upon a course, the very thought of changing their minds was considered blasphemy, with those that proposed the idea being flayed alive. For these same species to leave so completely spoke of unheard of levels of either fear or greed, neither of which he considered to be good for the humans of Earth.

"Were you able to learn anything at all?" he asked, hoping that they would have something to work with.

"Yes, but I am not sure I like what it implies," Andre Magno replied from his office in Brazil's capitol city. "One of our demon informants was captured just as he was about to flee through a portal. He was very determined to leave and was quite upset when the portal collapsed with him on our side of it. When we asked him why he was so frightened and why he was leaving, he said only one thing no matter how many times we asked for more."

"What did he say?" he asked, almost afraid to learn more.

"'The harvesters of life have awoken. All who do not flee will perish'," Andre replied, managing to sound ominous as he spoke. "I've had my researchers looking for any mention of these 'harvesters' but so far, nothing."

"The rest of us have had similar encounters and unfortunately identical luck in finding out more about what the demon species fear." Chen Jie said with an expression that hoped for that to change. "Whoever these 'harvesters' are, whatever they are, they must be powerful indeed to instill such fear in so many different species of demon."

He felt as though a cold wind had just blown through his bones but, even as his mind began to make a connection, he refused the very possibility of it. There was no proof that anything other the Normandy or the mass relays had been brought across from a different dimension, nor had anyone dressed as one of THEM at the party. Besides that, he could not believe that any being whether they be from a higher realm or a lower one would permit such a thing to come to pass.

"Does the term mean anything to you, Rupert?" Ivan asked, looking hopeful for new information.

"Nothing of consequence, my friend," he replied, seeing no reason to needlessly stir things up.

He could tell that many on the screens his comrades suspected he knew more than 'nothing of consequence' but, when none challenged his statement, he took that to mean they would wait before inquiring further.

"Continue monitoring the demon populations of your respective regions," he ordered, deciding to give them something to do would be best. "I want to know how many of each species still remains and how long we may have before they're all gone. If this is the beginning of the end of a demonic presence on Earth, I want to know for certain. It may also be prudent to see if any demonic or divine deities are withdrawing from this dimension as well."

"A good idea. Something that is causing the demons to flee might also cause beings who answer the calls of sorcerers to sever ties to this dimension as well." Andre said, nodding his head in agreement. "This could be both a good and a bad thing."

"What do you mean?" Chen Jie asked, sounding like she had only half an idea of what Andre meant.

"Those who practice black or demonic magic are not the only ones who call upon powerful beings for assistance in casting their spells. Many beneficial or white magicks do so as well and, if the deities that empower them vanish from this dimension, it could serve as quite a blow to us." Andre replied, pointing out the potential cost of the exodus.

"Not if all the supernatural or demonic threats we usually deal with are gone as well," Ivan pointed out, sounding only marginally concerned. "If we're lucky, the only threats that'll still be here in a years' time will be ones we won't need divine assistance for."

"Yes… well… let's not get ahead of ourselves," he said, trying to put an end to the debate. "Until we have more information, we should proceed under the assumption that it will be business as usual. If and only if we can gain confirmation that we will soon have this planet and dimension to ourselves will we begin considering how best to deal with the change in the status quo."

"Understood, my friend. Do svidan'ya," Ivan said before his image disappeared from the screen.

With that each of the branch leaders signed off, leaving the situation room to resume the usual tasks and leaving him to consider something he honestly never believed would happen. EVER. A world without demons… a world without the influence of higher or lower beings… such a thing had never been considered in all of recorded history. For as long as humans had been around, there had always been demons and otherworldly entities influencing the course of human history. For them to fade away within his lifetime… it both frightened him and excited him at the same time. Many who learned the truth of the world dreamed of a day when vampires would no longer walk the Earth, when demons would be reduced to a memory and when only benevolent deities would exist in the heavens. However everyone eventually realized that their dream would never come true because there were simply too many demons and some of them were too powerful for even an army to defeat.

Now it would seem the dream might very well be coming true without a single shot being fired.

"Are you worried about what I'm worried about?" Willow asked quietly from his right, drawing him out of his thoughts.

"Yes. I pray that we are both wrong," he replied, keeping his voice down as well.

"Do you think that this is what the Roman pantheon meant when they said it wouldn't be safe to turn everything back to the way it was?" she asked, sounding less angry and more wary than before.

"Probably, but for once I hope they are simply concerned about the Goa'uld or some other manageable threat," he replied as he turned to look her in the eye. "The alternative is too horrible to contemplate."

In fact he would put it out of his mind until he had no other option.

Better for his sanity that way.


End file.
